Athens Exchange

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.

Bank stocks staged a full recovery on Thursday to take the benchmark higher for the first time this month, in line with the rise recorded in international markets. The credit sector closed near the day's high, although turnover was lower than in previous days.

The Greek stock market has now chalked up four declining sessions out of four so far in November, only on Wednesday the closing auctions failed to rein in the losses incurred by the benchmark. The banks index took quite a hit, tumbling almost 5 percent.

The outflow of investors from OPAP, sparked by the Sazka Group's acquisition of a bigger stake in the Greek gaming company through a public offering, dragged most stocks at Athinon Avenue lower on Tuesday, before a late rally mitigated the benchmark's losses. Daily turnover was the highest in 23 sessions.

The Greek stock market appeared unaffected on Monday by the growth momentum observed by its international peers, and recorded a small decline on fairly low turnover. The likely reason was the decision by DBRS Morningstar last Friday not to upgrade Greece's rating, opting instead to upgrade only the country's outlook to "positive."

The benchmark index of the Greek stock market posted a weekly advance at the end of Friday's session, buoyed by Standard & Poor's credit rating upgrade for Greece and hopes that DBRS will follow suit. That enthusiasm appeared to run out of steam on Friday though, as trade slumped and the main index ended marginally lower on the day.

October was another month of growth for the main index of the Greek bourse, leading to gains of 1.63 percent. Almost half of that growth came through Thursday's advance, which was once again led by bank stocks. Meager though the monthly growth may seem, it has taken the benchmark's gains since the start of the year to almost 44 percent.

The closing auctions once again determined the benchmark result after another mixed session at Athinon Avenue on Wednesday. At the end of the day the main index continued its quiet advance, possibly thanks to the positive outcome of the T-bill auction too, although turnover appears to be losing steam.