A fast start to the year
The Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) composite share price index closed Thursday at 3,767.91 points, a gain of 104.01 points or 2.84 percent on the week, starting the year on a strong note and reaching levels last seen in November 2000. Turnover rose to 1.04 billion euros, an average of 260.99 million euros per session, from 196.27 million the previous week. The FTSE/Athex-20 index of blue chips gained 2.64 percent to close at 2,072.35 points, the FTSE/Athex Mid-40 rose 5.48 percent to close at 3,583.01 points, and the FTSE/Athex Small-Cap 80 added 6.03 percent. The composite FTSE/Athex-140 index gained 3.14 percent to close at 4,455.87 points, while the new FTSE/Athex International index gained 3.09 percent to close at 5,154.33 points. All of the revamped sectoral indices ended with gains. Top gainers were insurance (12.38 percent), industrial goods and services (8.85 percent), basic resources (7.21 percent) and personal and household goods (5.73 percent). Among individual titles, the top gainers were PC Systems (102.78 percent), Minerva (47.90 percent), Fanco (47.37 percent), Unibrain (36.89 percent) and Veterin (34.21 percent). The top losers were Plias (16.67 percent), Daios Plastics (14.48 percent), Xylemboria’s common shares (14.40 percent), ANEK’s preferred (1990) shares (10.18 percent) and Xylemboria’s preferred shares (10 percent). Alpha Bank topped the list of the most heavily traded shares, with an average turnover of 20.98 million euros per session. It was trailed by OTE (18.71 million), National Bank (18.02 million), OPAP (17.39 million) and EFG Eurobank (14.80 million).
