Blue chips lead decline
The Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) general index closed at 2,911.22 points on Friday, a decline of 42.84 points or 1.45 percent on the previous week’s close. The weekly decline, due to investors locking in profits in blue chips, was the index’s first after 11 straight weeks of gains. Turnover rose slightly to 998.45 million euros, an average of 199.69 million per session from the previous week’s average of 196.12 million. The FTSE/ASE-20 index of blue chips declined 1.55 percent to close at 1,608.15 points. By contrast, the FTSE/ASE Mid-40 and the FTSE/ASE Small-Cap 80 gained 1.48 percent and 0.38 percent respectively. The composite FTSE/ASE-140 index dropped 1.07 percent. Eleven of the 18 sectoral indices declined. Top gainers were information technology (6.85 percent), wholesale commerce (1.34 percent), holding companies (1.10 percent) and non-metallic minerals and cement (1.09 percent). The biggest losers were publishing and printing (6.88 percent), insurance (2.68 percent), refineries (2.43 percent) and telecoms (2.42 percent). Of the 364 individual titles traded, 161 gained, 172 declined and 31 ended unchanged. The biggest gainers were Rainbow Computer (40.22 percent), Neorion Shipyards (35.24 percent) and Atti-Kat (31.25 percent). The biggest decliners were VIS’s preferred shares (28.74 percent) and the common shares of Plias (14.29 percent) and Pegasus (14.02 percent). The most heavily traded stocks were those of National Bank, with an average turnover of 23.73 million euros per session, Alpha Bank (20.98 million) and OTE (16.09 million).
