Slight gains in blue chips
The Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) general index posted a small increase last week, fueled by rises in banks and other blue chips, gaining 14.64 points or 0.82 percent to close at 1,807.09 on Friday. With the first three of the week’s five sessions in negative territory, and only a slight increase on Thursday, the rise was due entirely to Friday’s performance, when the index, buoyed by good news from international markets, rose 4.10 percent. Total trading volume also increased slightly to 390.58 million euros (a daily average of 78.12 million) from 382.66 million euros the week before. Of the Financial Times indices, the FTSE/ASE-20 of blue chips gained 0.84 percent. The other two, the FTSE/ASE Mid-40 of medium-caps and the FTSE/ASE Small-Cap 80, slid 1.76 percent and 0.77 percent respectively. Sectoral indices also had a mixed performance. The biggest gains were made by TV & entertainment (3.05 percent) and telecommunications (2.83 percent). The biggest losses were sustained by textiles, which dived 6.95 percent and publishing and printing (4.02 percent). Of the 370 stocks traded, 192 lost ground, 156 gained and 22 remained unchanged. Top gainers were Alfa Alfa Energy (32 percent) and Imperio (27.74 percent). The week’s loss leaders were Eskimo and Unibrain, which ended off 25.82 percent and 24.17 percent, respectively. OTE Telecom was again the most heavily traded stock, averaging 7.39 million euros per session. It was followed by Informatics (5.79 million) and Lantec communications (5.59 million).
