Ellaktor

Many investors opted to sit out Thursday's trading session at Athinon Avenue ahead of Friday night's verdict by Fitch on Greece's rating and outlook, with sellers putting an end to the benchmark's seven-session rising streak.

Despite the slight drop of the banks index on Wednesday, the benchmark and the majority of stocks on the Greek bourse continued their rise, led by mid-caps, albeit at a slower pace than in previous days. This has taken the main index to another five-year record high after the seventh straight day of gains.

After hovering around Friday's closing level for most of the trading session on Monday, the stock benchmark at Athinon Avenue slipped below 920 points in the last hour-and-a-half, with blue chips such as banks experiencing selling action in the late afternoon.

The banks index at Athinon Avenue staged a 2.74 percent rebound on Thursday, leading the benchmark of the Greek bourse back up to 926 points on turnover of more than 100 million euros.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index ended at 926.06 points, adding 1.30 percent to Wednesday's 914.17 points. The large-cap FTSE 25 index expanded 1.22 percent to 2,308.07 points.

Most stocks recorded moderate gains or got a bit of a breather following last Friday's decline in the first trading session after the long weekend, but it appears clear that any disruption will be more likely to come from developments abroad than domestic ones this year.

The new year started with another 58-month high for the Greek stock market benchmark on Thursday, showing that the local bourse's growth momentum remains strong even without the support of credit sector stocks.

The Greek stock market enjoyed a day of solid gains on Thursday, with banks and Coca-Cola recording considerable growth and trading volume confirming that Athinon Avenue enjoyed wider investor interest than usual. Thursday's growth added a remarkable 1.2 billion euros to the bourse's capitalization.

Developments in the banking sector, mainly regarding nonperforming loans, gave bank stocks at Athinon Avenue a significant boost on Tuesday as buyers made a comeback, bolstering the bourse benchmark in the process and taking daily turnover back above the 50-million-euro level.

Greek stocks retained on Monday their southbound course set last week, with the benchmark losing just over 1 percent and trading volume remaining low, following the warning by Moody's that the global economy appears headed toward a slowdown.

As daily turnover at Athinon Avenue fell to its lowest in a month on Friday, stocks reverted to a downward course, partly due to the absence of any changes in the MSCI Greece index as expected on Thursday, along with the rise in Greek bond yields.