Cash-starved bourse loses more ground


The absorption of liquidity from banks’ share capital increases and from sovereign and corporate bond issues has this month deprived the local stock market of the cash that would have kept it on the upward course of previous months. Monday’s decline took the bourse’s benchmark below the 1,200-point level, mostly due to the lack of buyers rather than aggressive selling.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index finally closed at 1,193.95 points, shedding 2.39 percent from Friday’s 1,223.14 points. The large-cap FTSE/ATHEX 25 contracted 2.22 percent to 385.42 points.

All blue chips sustained a drop as Ellaktor fell 4.18 percent, Folli Follie gave up 3.78 percent, Mytilineos shrank by 3.61 percent, Hellenic Exchanges declined by 3.53 percent and TERNA Energy lost 3.30 percent.

In total, 33 stocks headed north, 91 suffered losses and 15 remained unchanged.

Turnover amounted to 89.5 million euros, against last Friday’s 98.1 million.

The FTSE/ATHEX index committee decided yesterday to reinstate Eurobank and Viohalco among the components of the blue-chip index, replacing Frigoglass and Corinth Pipeworks.

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