Index

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 late decline mainly by bank stocks led the benchmark of the Greek bourse to moderate losses on Wednesday, although the majority of stocks posted gains. The low turnover revealed that many investors chose to sit the session out in anticipation of the decisions by the central banks of the US and Britain.

Tuesday was a day of healthy gains on the Greek stock market, reminiscent of the sessions of high growth in the first couple of months of 2023. Assurances by domestic and foreign experts over the strength of the local credit system offered a major boost to bank stocks that led blue chips to a significant rebound.

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.

Friday's session at the Greek bourse proved to be a bull trap, as after the halfway point the early gains swung to losses and the majority of stocks closed the week with a significant drop - in line with the fall of the Credit Suisse stock in Zurich - in what was the second straight week of prices shrinking at Athinon Avenue.

No one can claim they got bored watching Thursday's bourse session at Athinon Avenue, as after the 4.55% slump on Wednesday, the fastest in nine months, buyers returned in force on Thursday morning boosted by the central bank's support for Credit Suisse.

The reaction of Greek stocks to several days of decline, which had even put the benchmark's grip on the 1,000-point mark at risk, finally arrived on Tuesday, with banks leading the recovery of prices at Athinon Avenue. The advance accelerated after the announcement of inflation data from the US, with the main index closing near the day's highs.

The Greek banking sector reacted to the huge external pressure from the closure of two lenders in the United States, as its index on the Athens Stock Exchange rebounded from a decline of almost 5% on Monday to end the session with gains of approximately 1% - even if the rest of the market failed to follow suit.

The rising sequence of 11 weeks came to an emphatic end on Friday, with the Greek bourse benchmark this week losing a significant portion of the ground gained over the last month. This was topped by a strong decline on the day, amounting to almost 2.5 percentage points, driven by international concern over banks, which also affected the local credit sector's prospects.

The rebound expected on Thursday at the Greek stock market, following five consecutive days of decline, did materialize, but the benchmark closed some way from its day-highs.