FTSE

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.

The bourse ended the trading week on Thursday with a mixed session - after some early gains - that concluded with losses for the benchmark and mid-caps slide while blue chips and a large number of other stocks headed higher.

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.

Global index provider FTSE Russell announced during the March 2020 interim review a series of clarifications regarding the promotion of Romania to the status of Secondary Emerging Market, according to a press release of the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

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.

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.