Stocks slip 0.19 pct; National outperforms
Selective blue chip buying helped trim losses on the Athens bourse yesterday as National Bank outperformed with investors attracted to its dividend yield. National, which rose 1.58 percent, will propose to its general assembly today a 1.10 euro per share dividend for fiscal 2001, which translates into a dividend yield of 5.3 percent based on yesterday’s closing price of 20.62 euros. «National’s healthy dividend yield helped draw investors,» said Petros Tegopoulos, analyst at Axon Securities. The benchmark general index slipped 0.19 percent to 2,200.18 points. Banks shed 0.69 percent and the telecoms subindex lost 0.83 percent. The FTSE/ASE-20 index of blue chips retreated 0.44 percent to 1,153.69 points. The FTSE/ASE-40 index of mid-caps added 0.74 percent and small-caps gained 0.44 percent. Total turnover was 76.58 million euros on volume of 16.7 million shares. Winners beat losers 172 to 116 with 65 unchanged on 353 traded. (Reuters) OTE Telecom e-commerce subsidiary cosmoONE is registering high growth rates in its horizontal b2b marketsite, a statement said yesterday. The value of goods traded reached 67.5 million euros in the first quarter of 2002, after a total of 54.8 million for all of 2001. Orders mainly concerned computers, office items and mobile telephony.
