Index down in all areas
The Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) posted another week of losses last week. The general price index closed at 2,225 points on Friday, down 3.09 percent from a week earlier. The total weekly volume of trading reached 1,027.77 million euros, a daily average of 205.55 million euros. Of the Financial Times indices, the blue chip FTSE/ASE-20 declined 3.09 percent, while the small- and medium-capitalization indices, the FTSE/ Mid-40 and FTSE/Small Cap-80, registered losses of 1.92 percent and 1.82 percent respectively. All sectoral indices ended lower, with the exception of textiles, which posted gains of 0.57 percent. The television-entertainment index was the biggest loser, falling 6.04 percent, followed by telecommunications and information technology, which lost 4.49 percent and 3.41 percent respectively. The Parallel Market index ended down 3.24 percent, with IT equipment-solutions losing 3.03 percent, and wholesale commerce 3.02 percent. Banks lost 2.54 percent. At individual share level, of the 377 stocks traded, 270 registered losses, 80 gains while 27 remained unchanged. Keranis Holdings headed the gainers’ list by far with 22.52 percent, followed by ATEMKE with 11.11 percent and Balafas Holdings with 10.47 percent. The losers were led by VIS, which shed 15.69 percent, followed by Olympic Catering, which ended 14.89 percent lower and Papafilis Mills with 13.61 percent. By far the most heavily traded stock was OTE Telecom, totaling a value of 33.6 million euros as the government sold 8 percent of outstanding shares. It was followed by Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company with 4.6 million euros and the Public Power Corporation with 2.96 million euros. To understand the magnitude of the EU inflows, one has to consider the fact that Greece is projected to receive about 5 billion euros on average per annum in the 2000-2006 period, net of its own payments to the EU budget.
