Last-hour buying reverses early losses
Stocks ended the last trading session of the week with small gains, with a wave of selective buying in the last hour of trading reversing an early decline on the Athens Stock Exchange. The benchmark general index rose 0.39 percent to end at 1,836.32 points, with turnover a low 78.2 million euros. It ended the week with a net gain of 3.41 percent. Insurance, publishing and printing and holding companies scored the biggest percentage gains of the day (4.30 percent, 1.22 percent and 0.99 percent, respectively), while wholesale trade, textiles and investment stocks suffered the heaviest percentage losses (0.80 percent, 0.77 percent and 0.67 percent, respectively). The FTSE/ASE-20 index of blue chips ended 0.40 percent higher; mid-caps dropped 0.01 percent and small-capitalization stocks gained 0.02 percent. Of the 350 stocks traded yesterday, 156 gained, 156 declined and 38 remained unchanged. (ANA)
