OTE TELECOM

The Goldman Sachs comment on Wednesday afternoon that the Greek economy will stay strong despite any political turmoil, and even regain investment grade in three weeks' time, helped the Greek stock market secure gains on Wednesday, even if it had struggled to keep pace with the rest of its eurozone peers. Moody's positive outlook of the local credit sector also helped.

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.

January ended at the Greek stock market with 10.01% growth for the main index, after it suffered a minor decline on Tuesday in a mixed session. While some fellow eurozone bourses took heavier losses on the day, Athinon Avenue saw its expected profit-taking to be small and targeted, while banks enjoyed another day of price gains.

The main index of the Greek stock market is seriously eyeing the 1,000-point milestone following another session of growth on Friday that saw it climb to its highest level since February 11, 2022, for yet another 11-month high. This time the price growth was universal and not restricted to certain sectors or capitalization sizes, not to mention the increase in turnover.

The Greek bourse followed on Tuesday in the footsteps left by major foreign markets over the last couple of days, taking its benchmark just over the 760-point mark, though banks had less to do with that growth than other blue chips. Turnover saw a marked improvement too.

Athinon Avenue eased off Monday's 11-month highs on Tuesday, with the benchmark dropping just over 1% on lower trading volume than on Monday. Banks headed south, but energy stocks mostly headed higher again. Observers consider this cashing in of recent gains quite predictable.

The Greek stock market closed for Christmas on Wednesday with further gains for most companies, on the strength of the growing prospects of an agreement between Brussels and London over Brexit, although the day's turnover was the lowest in the last 33 sessions. The bourse will next reopen on Monday.

Thursday's session on the Athens Stock Exchange was even more subdued than recent days, if that is possible.

In the end, the general index, which had been showing mild losses throughout, tipped over into positive territory, closing at 637.27 points, a gain of 0.36%. Late gains in OTE Telecom were the main reason.

Turnover was €23.61 million on volume of 16,373,894 shares.

The Fed's {decision on Wednesday to hold the key US interest rates unchanged inflicted losses on most European stock markets on Thursday; the Greek bourse followed suit, with its benchmark heading south for the third day in a row, on the lowest daily turnover in 11 sessions.

Banking and energy stocks boosted the Greek bourse on the last day of this week, although the benchmark ended up holding onto just a fraction of the gains it had recorded before the closing auctions. Even so its consolidation well above the 600-point mark is a positive omen ahead of next week.