Blue chips drive rise
The Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) closed at 2,344.36 points on Friday, a gain of 15.65 points or 0.67 percent over the previous week. While turnover varied widely from session to session, total turnover rose marginally to 404.97 million euros, or 80.99 million per session, from 80.61 million the previous week. The FTSE/ASE-20 index of blue chips rose 1.27 percent to close at 1,263.22 points. By contrast, the FTSE/ASE mid-40 and the FTSE/ASE small-cap 80 declined 0.31 percent and 1.72 percent respectively, reflecting the low investor interest for stocks in those categories. The composite FTSE/ASE-140 gained 0.87 percent to close at 2,704.09 points. Ten out of the 18 sectoral indices ended with losses. The biggest losses were registered by construction (3.47 percent), insurance (3.19 percent) and textiles (2.37 percent), while the biggest gains were made by banks (1.84 percent), holding companies (1.83 percent) and telecommunications (1.32 percent). Of the 364 stocks traded, 81 gained, 246 declined and 37 ended unchanged. Top individual gainers were Allatini Ceramics (15.52 percent), Chipita (13.27 percent), Cor-Fil’s preferred stock (10.81 percent) and Profile (9.52 percent). Top losers were Balafas Holdings (21.62 percent), Fanco (20.45 percent), Karamolengos (18.25 percent) and Imako (18.18 percent). The most heavily traded stock was Alpha Bank, with an average per session turnover of 12.29 million euros. Rounding up the top five were OTE (11.63 million), National Bank (6.54 million), OPAP (4.59 million) and the Public Power Corporation (4.28 million).
