Athens Exchange

Bank stocks and Ellaktor helped the benchmark at Athinon Avenue retain a fraction of its midsession gains on Wednesday, while many other eurozone bourses ended up in the red after two days of growth. Thus the Greek market made it three rising sessions in succession.

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 mixed session that brought the bourse week to a close on Friday saw the benchmark and blue chips record losses, while the mid-cap index advanced and rising stocks outnumbers losers at a ratio of almost two-to-one, on what was the lowest daily turnover of the last eight sessions.

The benchmark of the Greek bourse shook off its midsession losses on Thursday to end the session with gains fueled by the positive start on US markets and the global rise in commodities, although bank stocks failed to get the memo. Turnover remained low.

March, and with it the first quarter of the year, came to a close on Tuesday with a bourse session that saw all its mid-session gains vanishing by the closing bell and stocks split down the middle between gainers and losers.

Piraeus Bank grew full-year 2019 net profit, helped by lower operating costs and higher net interest income, Greece's largest lender by assets said on Monday.
Piraeus Bank, which is 26.2 percent owned by the country's HFSF bank rescue fund, reported a net profit of 270 million euros after net earnings of 185 million in 2018.

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.

Alpha Bank reported slightly higher net profit in the fourth quarter last year on the back on lower provisions for bad loans and better net interest income, Greece's fourth-largest lender by assets said on Friday.

The European Central Bank decision to lift its 33 percent limit on euro area government bond purchases gave Greek stocks a second consecutive day of healthy gains on Thursday. The bourse saw its capitalization grow by 2.5 billion euros over those two sessions, with credit sector stocks playing a major role in that advance.