Eurobank

Stocks headed lower for a third consecutive session on Wednesday while pressure continued on Greek bonds. The continued decline of bank stocks in particular, combined with the relatively increased turnover, suggests that investors are in a bearish mood, which is likely to set the tone for the next few sessions too.

Banks and Folli Follie inflicted fresh losses on the main index at the Athens Exchange (ATHEX) on Tuesday as the pressure continued on Greek bond prices and on international markets, taking the benchmark below the 800-point mark.

It seems Public Power Corporation is the new sales target after Folli Follie, as its stock slumped 9.47 percent on Monday. The Greek market benchmark ended in the red on a day of particularly low trading volume.

Greek banks are stepping up efforts to rid themselves of nonperforming loans, planning to put portfolios with a total face value of 13.5 billion euros up for sale within 2018.

The bulk of that amount, or 9.7 billion euros, is expected to have been transferred by the end of the year's first half, while another 3.8 billion is set to be offered in the second half.

The Greek stock market's trading week - dominated by the Folli Follie saga and talk of the upcoming independent probe into the listed company - ended on Friday with a session of moderate gains that reduced the impact of losses recorded in previous sessions. However, Greek stocks' apparent vulnerability to speculation does not bode well for the future.

After the stormy sessions of previous days, the Greek stock market had a fairly quiet time of it on Thursday, with its indices presenting a mixed picture while the majority of stocks headed lower.

The boost provided by Chinese stakeholder Fosun to the stock of Folli Follie, buying 750,000 shares, gave the Athens Exchange an early push on Wednesday, but most of the gains evaporated during the course of the session, leaving the benchmark at the day's low upon closing.

The standoff between blue chip company Folli Follie and Quintessential Capital Management over the former's fundamentals continued to weigh heavily on the Greek stock market on Monday. The benchmark dropped for a fourth day in a row, in spite of the positive outcome of the banks' stress tests (largely factored in) and the favorable atmosphere on foreign markets.

The Bank of Greece announced on Saturday the successful completion of the European Central Bank's exercise for domestic banks simulating an adverse economic scenario.

Greece's four biggest banks would lose around 15.5 billion euros worth of their capital by 2020, or 9 percentage points of capital, under an adverse economic scenario, results of a stress test published by the European Central Bank showed on Saturday.