Blue chips keep ASE up
The Athens Stock Exchange general index closed last week at 2,334.71 points, a rise of 13.52 points or 0.58 percent from the previous week’s close. Turnover improved to a total of 408.28 million euros, or 81.66 million per session, from 74.12 million per session during the previous week. The rise was almost entirely due to increased investor interest in blue chips. Thus the FTSE/ASE-20 blue-chip index advanced 0.99 percent to close at 1,249.99 points, while the FTSE/ASE Mid-40 and the FTSE/ASE Small-Cap 80 lost 1.06 percent and 2.19 percent, respectively. The composite FTSE/ASE-140 advanced 0.50 percent to close at 2,689.62 points. Ten of 18 sectoral indices ended lower. The biggest losses came in retail commerce (2.85 percent), textiles (2.28 percent) and wholesale commerce (1.10 percent). Top gainers were telecoms (2.14 percent), refineries (1.83 percent) and investment firms (1.69 percent). Among the 366 stocks traded, 111 gained, 213 declined and 42 ended unchanged. Space Hellas and Compucon led the gainers (21.92 percent and 14.49 percent, respectively), with just four other stocks rising in double figures. Losers were led by holding company Dynamic Life (19.44 percent) followed, for the first time, by a four-way tie among Hatzioannou Holdings, Varveris-Moda Bagno, Nikos Galis and Tassoglou-Delonghi, all declining 16.67 percent. Eleven more suffered double-digit losses. The week’s most marketable stock was Alpha Bank, with an average turnover of 10.82 million euros per session, followed by OTE Telecom (8.74 million).
