Viohalco

The pendulum at Athinon Avenue swung deep into the red on Wednesday, along with most other eurozone market, while traders had one eye fixed on the auction of the new seven-year bond. Thursday's session will be the last before the Easter holidays.

The Greek stock market returned to action after four days of recess with strong gains for most stocks on Tuesday on optimism that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic in Europe is over and oil prices will revert to stability after the recent agreement between oil-producing states. The late surge was bolstered by news that Greece is planning to tap the markets.

Tuesday's trading session at Athinon Avenue, which closed without any news from the Eurogroup meeting, continued along Monday's growth path, taking the stock market's gains to 4.3 billion euros in capitalization terms from the start of the week as the benchmark has rebounded by almost 12.4 percent in total. This has been accompanied by a fresh decline in bond yields.

The decline that started toward the end of Tuesday's stock trading session at Athinon Avenue continued throughout the day on Wednesday, led by the credit sector, which took significant losses, in line with most international markets. Daily turnover dropped significantly.

The coronavirus pandemic has dealt another blow to the Greek economy as Viohalco subsidiary Sidenor announced on Monday the suspension of all operations at its steelmaking units in Greece from this Thursday until May 3, a move attributed to the sudden slump in demand for construction materials and the shelving of major state projects.

The flexibility that the credit sector has secured from the European Central Bank and the reserved optimism that the restriction measures in Greece are bearing fruit, amid more handout pledges by the government, saw the local stock market head higher on Monday in a relatively calm environment for global securities.

The failure of Thursday's European Union summit to reach an agreement on the issue of extraordinary bonds, dubbed "corona bonds," and the temptation to cash in gains recorded on Tuesday and Thursday led the benchmark of the Greek bourse back down to the 550-point level on Friday.

Monday's session at the Greek bourse was short and sour for stocks. The start was delayed by over four hours due to technical problems in data transmission, and the benchmark suffered major losses in the three-and-a-half hours of trade (an hour's extension was granted), with banks once again enduring most of the pressure.

Stocks in the Greek bourse were once again swayed by banks that dragged the market lower on Tuesday, accelerating the benchmark's decline toward the 900-point mark.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index ended at 911.82 points, shedding 0.86 percent from Monday's 919.77 points. The large-cap FTSE 25 index contracted 0.95 percent to 2,291.80 points.

Greek stocks suffered a significant drop on Friday, wiping out almost all the gains registered by the bourse benchmark over the course of the week. The decline was led by the banks index, which posted a 4.42 percent weekly loss.