Stocks rise on late buying
The Athens bourse ended with gains of more than 1 percent yesterday on across-the-board gains. The Athens Exchange’s benchmark general index closed 1.31 percent higher, at 1,541.43 points, after spending most of the session in negative territory. National Bank jumped 5.96 percent to 9.96 euros while Bank of Cyprus slumped 6.63 percent to 1.69 euros. Emporiki Bank, the Greek unit of France’s Credit Agricole, gained 4.98 percent to 4.22 euros despite reporting earlier a 491-million-euro loss for 2008. The blue chip FTSE/ATHEX 20 index added 1.19 percent to close at 763.70 points. Turnover for the day reached 114 million euros versus 102.8 million euros in the previous session.
