athens exchange

The Athens bourse reverted to its rising course with renewed strength on Tuesday, as the benchmark of the market climbed to highs unseen since early April 2014 thanks to the positioning of several investors in local companies ahead of Greece's much-anticipated credit rating upgrade. Still, the main index stopped short of the 1,350-point mark, closing three points off the mid-session high.

Concerns over Greek tourism, given the forest fires on Rhodes and Corfu, put an end to the rising streak of the Athens stock market on Monday, with the indexes suffering small losses and the losing stocks outnumbering the gainers, on reduced turnover too. Still, Aegean Airlines recorded a new historic high on the day.

Thursday was another positive day for the Greek stock market, albeit on rather weak turnover. The benchmark at Athinon Avenue climbed to yet another nine-year high, this time boosted mainly by mid-caps as investors seek opportunities in underpriced stocks.

Even without the support of bank stocks, the Athens bourse benchmark soared to yet another nine-year high on Wednesday, in line with the positive mood across eurozone markets. Four out of the 21 non-banking blue chips closed at historic highs, also helped by the Scope Ratings report about the growing prospect of Greece regaining investment grade.

On Tuesday high-flying Mytilineos Group and the banking sector led the Greek stock market back to its upward course that has dominated Athinon Avenue throughout this year.

Friday's narrow trading session at the Greek stock market concluded with some gains for most, at the end of a week of price growth that sent the benchmark to yet another nine-year high at the close. Barring any unforeseeable factors, the short-term trend at Athinon Avenue remains positive, with prices rising in line with the temperatures.

The Greek stock market experienced a mixed session on Thursday, with the majority of stocks closing with gains while most indexes posted losses at the end of the day. Traders opted for select sales to cash in their recent gains, so the benchmark came off Wednesday's 111-month high to settle for a minor decline.

Athens' stock market went up, then down and then back up on Wednesday, the end result being the benchmark's closing at a high unseen since early April 2014, even if the day's turnover was not as robust as on Tuesday.

Proceeding in line with fellow eurozone markets, the Greek bourse produced gains of almost 1% for the benchmark on Monday, following three sessions of decline last week. However, there was also the domestic dimension that played its part, with traders showing their satisfaction with the measures the government promised in Parliament for strengthening the capital market.

The benchmark of the Greek stock market appeared once again on Thursday reluctant to measure itself against the 1,300-point level it had last reached in June 2014, and gave ground on a day of reduced trading volume.