Mid-caps lead slight recovery

The Athens Stock Exchange was on the path of recovery last week. Four out of five sessions ended with gains. As a result, the composite price index gained 82.09 points, or 3.47 percent, from a week earlier, to close at 2,448.11 on Friday. The volume of trading was 581.4 million euros – a daily average of 116.28 million. Investor interest focused on blue chips and mid-caps, with the FTSE/ASE-20 and FTSE/ASE mid-40 indexes gaining 3.12 percent and 3.41 percent, respectively. The small-cap FTSE/ASE-80 index gained 2.70 percent. All sectoral indexes but two ended with gains. The biggest gains were made by industrials (3.56 percent), telecommunications (3.49 percent) and construction firms (3.27 percent). The two sectors with losses were insurance (2.12 percent) and retail firms (0.82 percent). Of the 369 stocks traded, 254 gained, 92 fell and 23 remained unchanged. The biggest beneficiaries of the week were Nexans Hellas (40.33 percent) and Klonatex (18.92 percent). The biggest losers were K. Lazaridis (12.32 percent) and Viosol’s preferred shares (10.47 percent). OTE was the most heavily traded stock with a daily average value of 9.19 million euros.