Titan Cement

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.

Bank stocks were back in the driving seat at Athinon Avenue on Wednesday, taking the Greek bourse benchmark to a new three-month high - i.e. its highest since the coronavirus epidemic began in Greece. The 700-point milestone seems to be growing closer, while investors appear to have plenty of disposable cash.

The various channels of liquidity that central banks the world over are offering to markets have boosted prices on the majority of international bourses. Athinon Avenue happily rode the buyers' wave on Tuesday, with interest focusing almost exclusively on blue chips.

The upcoming rebalancing of the MSCI Greek stock indexes and profit taking after five consecutive days of gains led to losses at Athinon Avenue on Friday, with a huge daily turnover. Notably 70% of trading volume took placing during the closing auctions. The benchmark of the Athens stock market ended May with a monthly advance of 3.87%, though banks lost 2.94%.

Early profit-taking at Athinon Avenue gave way to a fresh wave of buying later on Thursday - although banks appeared to have fallen out of favor - taking the benchmark higher for the fifth session in a row. The market is now confidently looking toward more growth, boosted also by the significant increase in daily trading volumes.

The European Commission announcements concerning grants and loans for member-states adding up to 750 million euros gave Greek stocks a major boost on Wednesday, in line with most other European bourses. The fourth consecutive day of gains on the highest turnover of the last two-and-a-half months took the benchmark over 8.5% higher compared to last Thursday's closing.

On a day when Wall Street and the London Stock Exchange remained closed, the Greek bourse secured a rather satisfactory turnover of almost 50 million euros on Monday, with traders opting to position themselves ahead of this Friday's upcoming index rebalancing. Leading the benchmark to strong gains were bank stocks, which were oversold in previous 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.

The Greek securities markets are showing a shift from stocks to bonds, as confidence in the state's solvency is growing while the private sector is facing multiple problems. On the same day the benchmark of Athinon Avenue suffered minor losses and banks dipped to new lows, the Greek 10-year bond continued its rally, with its yield dropping to 1.73% on Thursday.

The majority of stock prices recovered from early lows on Wednesday to end the session with gains. However, banks failed to stage a recovery, as buyers appeared more interested in specific blue chips outside the credit sector, such as energy stocks.