Helleniq Energy

Wednesday's narrow session at the Athens stock market saw the benchmark come off Tuesday's 104-month high and after negligible fluctuation it closed with a small drop, though the losing stocks outnumbered those that notched up gains. 

Mid- and small-caps on Wednesday served to maintain the upward trajectory of the Greek bourse benchmark, which completed its sixth consecutive session of expansion, albeit marginally, despite blue chips and bank stocks heading south.

The slowing pace of the Fed rate hikes and those that followed in Britain, Switzerland and Norway kept investors at bay on Thursday, though buyers edged out sellers at Athinon Avenue for price growth on low turnover. This time banks underperformed, but they are about to be joined soon by the new listing of Optima Bank in a rare injection of fresh blood in this section of the market.

The Greek stock market opened the week with a 2.1% decline in Monday's first few minutes, as a result of the shocking news of Credit Suisse's demise and takeover by fellow Swiss lender UBS, but stocks gradually began to recover and swung back into the black as the session progressed to close with moderate gains in their majority.

Non-bank blue chips outperformed on Friday at the Greek stock market to take the benchmark to yet another eight-year high, with the wave of stock buying that started in late December continuing unabated. In these first four weeks of the year the main index has added just under 10%.