Stocks rise on rebound by lenders
Greek stocks advanced 3.76 percent yesterday, with banks outperforming, inching away from oversold levels. The Athens bourse’s benchmark general index closed at 1,461.83 points. Heavily battered banks rose 5.34 percent, trimming their losses over the last month to 19.45 percent. National Bank gained 5.35 percent to 9.65 euros and peer Alpha jumped 5.77 percent to 4.40 euros. Eurobank showed gains of 4.42 percent to 3.78 euros and Bank of Cyprus ended at 3.22 percent, up 6.62 percent. Cement company Titan also ranked among the winners, jumping 4.11 percent to 15.20 euros as did toy retailer Jumbo, which rose 6.89 percent to 5.12 euros. The blue chip FTSE/ATHEX 20 index rose 4.32 percent to 698.96 points. The only blue chip stock to end in the red was construction group Ellaktor, which eased 0.35 percent to 2.81 euros after Piraeus Securities cut its target price on the stock to 6.10 euros, from 7.70 euros. The brokerage cited poor visibility on future projects and profit margins but reiterated its outperform rating on the stock. Turnover reached 110.6 million euros versus 127 million in the previous session.
