Small-caps fall heavily
The Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) general index shed 39.68 points or 1.65 percent last week to close at 2,360.34 points on Friday. Turnover declined further, to 475.30 million euros, an average per session of 95.06 million, against 108.53 million the week before. Once again, the greatest pressure was on small-capitalization stocks, many of which continued to record year lows. The FTSE/ASE Small-Cap 80 shed 2.39 percent. The FTSE/ASE-20 index of blue chips fell 1.65 percent, to 1,255.13 points, and the FTSE/ASE Mid-40 dropped 1.13 percent. The composite FTSE/ASE-140 lost 1.64 percent to close at 2,742.77 points. Fifteen of the 18 sectoral indices recorded losses. The exceptions were information technology (up 2.55 percent), real estate (0.91 percent) and telecommunications (0.01 percent). The biggest losses were sustained by textiles (6.31 percent), insurance (6.30 percent), publishing and printing (4.17 percent) and non-metallic minerals (3.65 percent). Banks lost 1.79 percent. Among the 366 individual stocks traded, decliners outnumbered advancers 269 to 71, with 26 remaining unchanged. Bottler Crown Hellas Can led gainers, rising 10.51 percent, followed by the preferred stock of winery Boutaris (7.27 percent). Allatini Ceramics topped the long list of losers, shedding 28.83 percent, followed by textile company Varvaressos (24.44 percent). The most marketable securities were Public Power Corporation, National Bank and OTE telecoms.
