CosmOTE outperforms bourse, index rises slightly
Cellular operator CosmOTE outperformed the Athens bourse yesterday after news of strong subscriber base growth. The broader market trimmed midsession gains, ending 0.23 percent higher. CosmOTE, an OTE Telecoms subsidiary, said yesterday it had 2.74 million subscribers at the end of September 2001, a 55.5-percent increase year-on-year. CosmOTE gained 1.43 percent to 9.90 euros. The telecom subindex firmed 0.12 percent. It is unfortunate that the stock (CosmOTE) cannot take advantage of these good results, given the prevailing market sentiment, said Marinos Giourgas, broker at Market Securities. The Athens bourse’s benchmark general index gained 0.23 percent to 2,220.41 points after reaching an intrasession high of 2,234.64. Turnover was 78.95 million euros on 18.5 million shares traded. Blue chips on the FTSE/ASE-20 index gained 0.07 percent to 1,241.33 points. Mid-caps on the FTSE/ASE-40 index added 0.76 percent to 225.04 points, while small-caps ended up 0.26 percent. Winners beat losers 178 to 127 with 52 shares unchanged on 357 traded. New markets such as Croatia and Bulgaria, which had problems in the past, now attract satisfactory numbers of tourists from European countries.