ATHEX: Bourse index adds to its recent gains

The rather unexpected upgrading of Greece's credit rating by Fitch last Friday gave an extra push to the Greek stock market on Monday, with the benchmark reaching levels unseen since early December 2014. Despite the political confrontation inside and outside Parliament, the market appears to buy the scenario of political stability after this spring's elections and has not yet looked back after the main index passed the psychologically important 1,000-point mark.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index closed at 1,024.75 points, adding 0.91% to Friday's 1,015.48 points and the large-cap FTSE-25 index expanded 1.05% to end up at 2,484.53 points.

The banks index rose 1.22%, as Piraeus collected 2.80%, Alpha grew 1.21%, Eurobank earned 0.88% and National Bank climbed 0.81%. Among the other blue chips Mytilineos jumped 2.94%, while Ellaktor parted with 4.81%.

In...