Titan Cement

European markets on Tuesday continued riding the wave of enthusiasm resulting from the first round of the French election on Sunday, which, combined with the resumption of the bailout review negotiations in Athens, gave Greek stocks even greater momentum. The benchmark ended a mere whisker away from the 700-point mark and the day's trading volume came to almost 80 million euros.

The Greek bourse benchmark climbed to a new 17-month high on Wednesday - albeit on low trading volume - with investors apparently positioning themselves ahead of next month's likely conclusion of the bailout review, when they will be able to cash in their gains of the last few weeks.

After four sessions in the red, bank stocks staged a notable recovery on Wednesday, shaking off negative reports on the local credit sector by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Standard & Poor's. The prospect of a deal with the country's creditors edged closer and fueled a late surge in prices that offset earlier losses.

Investors in the local bourse were clearly nervous on Tuesday - largely due to the increase in Greek lenders' dependence on the Bank of Greece's emergency liquidity mechanism, as well as Single Supervisory Mechanism head Daniele Nouy's visit to Athens - and this resulted in significant losses for the vast majority of stocks at Athinon Avenue, with banks leading the way.

Traders showed on Monday they are not willing to make any major moves before Thursday's Eurogroup meeting, with stocks showing hardly any movement at the start of the week, and trading volume falling even lower than on previous days.

The leaked details of a European Stability Mechanism paper documenting short-term measures to ease Greece's national debt, as well as news of progress in the bailout review talks, particularly on the labor relations front, led most Greek stocks to significant gains on Wednesday, in line with those registered on Wall Street and elsewhere in Europe, and improvements in oil rates.

Fears of complications in Greece's second bailout review and further tremors in the runup to the US elections weighed on the majority of Greek stocks on Tuesday, with the benchmark giving up close to 1.5 percent.

International market euphoria over the rise of oil prices to a year-high, coupled with domestic certainty over the disbursement of the long-overdue bailout sub-tranche brought gains of over 1 percent to the Greek bourse's benchmark on Monday.

The Bank of Japan's surprise decision to keep interest rates unchanged against expectations for a drop deeper into negative territory bolstered most European bourses on Wednesday before interest turned toward the Fed verdict, but the Greek stock market felt little of that positive effect.

As investors continued to await the conclusion of the government's negotiations with the country's creditors, profit taking dominated Monday's session at the Greek bourse, on the heels of last week's mini-rally that saw the benchmark clear 600 points. The first hour of trading resulted in gains, but the majority of stocks sank into negative territory for the rest of the day.