Blue chips lead market higher
The Athens Stock Exchange composite share price index closed last Friday at 4,314.90 points, a gain of 54.18 points or 1.27 percent on the previous week’s close. Turnover dropped to 1.69 billion euros, an average of 337.04 million euros per session, from 387.16 million the previous week. The FTSE/Athex 20 index of blue chips gained 1.18 percent to close at 2,385.25 points, while the FTSE/Athex Mid 40 declined 0.09 percent to close at 4,818.43 points, the FTSE/Athex Small-Cap 80 slid 0.86 percent to close at 852.94 points, the composite FTSE/Athex 140 index rose 0.90 percent to close at 5,277.95 points and the FTSE/Athex International index gained 0.95 percent to close at 6,194.33 points. Ten of the 17 sectoral indices gained ground. Top gainers were foods and beverages (up 6.23 percent), utilities (2.17 percent) and financial services (1.37 percent). Top losers were technology (down 2.44 percent), travel and leisure (1.97 percent) and raw materials (1.92 percent). Among individual titles, the top gainers were Kreka (up 42.74 percent), Veterin (30.25 percent) and Allatini Ceramics (26.53 percent). The top losers were the preferred stocks of Tria Alfa (down 19.40 percent), Emborikos Desmos (16.67 percent) and Anek (96) (14.79 percent). National Bank topped the list of the most heavily traded shares, with an average turnover of 43.95 million euros per session. It was trailed by Alpha Bank (33.81 million), EFG Eurobank (24.61 million), OPAP (16.82 million), Piraeus Bank (15.18 million), OTE (15.04 million), Coca-Cola HBC (12.05 million) and Bank of Cyprus (8.35 million).