athens exchange

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 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.

The Greek bourse appears to have stemmed the outflow of funds seen at the start of the week and is preparing for its next move upward, after another session - on Wednesday - where blue chips rebounded, with the exception of banks. Reports by foreign firms, such as that by Jefferies, indicate that there is more to come from where the January and February momentum came from.

Investor concern about a shift in local politics that may increase the election risk for the government, due to the railway tragedy at Tempe, led on Monday to the biggest daily decline in seven months for the main index at Athinon Avenue. Led by banks, Greek stocks lost a significant portion of their recent gains, as the impact of the train crash does not appear to be going away anytime soon.

The US Fed and European Central Bank rate hikes went largely according to expectations, so eurozone stock markets, including Greece's, proceeded smoothly on Thursday with sessions of mild gains.

Banks supported the fresh increase of the Greek bourse benchmark to another eight-year high on Wednesday, as the trend of the local market remains upward in spite of the odd case of cashing in the significant gains of the last few weeks. Some more extensive profit-taking appears overdue, but buyers continue to have reasons for raising stock prices.

January ended at the Greek stock market with 10.01% growth for the main index, after it suffered a minor decline on Tuesday in a mixed session. While some fellow eurozone bourses took heavier losses on the day, Athinon Avenue saw its expected profit-taking to be small and targeted, while banks enjoyed another day of price gains.

The rather unexpected upgrading of Greece's credit rating by Fitch last Friday gave an extra push to the Greek stock market on Monday, with the benchmark reaching levels unseen since early December 2014.

The Greek bourse benchmark's third effort to clear the 1,000-point bar proved successful at Thursday's closing, as the local market has finally captured the milestone that had proved elusive for more than eight years. The last time Athinon Avenue's main index had four digits was in December 2014 - i.e.