FTSE

Afternoon selling at the Greek stock market offset all of Tuesday morning's gains, leading the main index at Athinon Avenue lower for a fourth consecutive day.

With August more than a week away, daily turnover at the Athens stock market fell to the lowest point in 18 months on Monday, while the benchmark lost ground for a third consecutive session. Athinon Avenue appears to be on auto-pilot in the absence of any notable factors that might change its course.

The significant declines recorded by most stocks on the Athens Exchange (ATHEX) on Friday wiped out all the benchmark gains recorded during the week, as sellers returned in the afternoon of July's triple witching day. Banks led the slide, while Coca-Cola HBC contained the losses of the blue-chip index.

The inevitable drop in Greek stock prices following the notable gains registered in the last few sessions came on an exceptionally low trading volume on Thursday. Most indexes closed near their day's low and there is no sign of anything that might convince traders to turn their attention back to the local stock market any time soon.

Encouraged by the positive mood on stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic, traders at Athinon Avenue on Wednesday took the benchmark to its highest closing of the last 17 sessions, although turnover remained low.

The week at the Athens stock exchange got off to a quiet start with a few buyers and no sellers, while more than half of the trading volume concerned pre-arranged deals. Turnover this July bears more resemblance to that which would normally be expected in August, the traditional holiday month, so one can only wonder what levels it will sink to then.

The Berlin obstacle that Athens failed to clear at Thursday's Eurogroup did not seem to concern the local stock market too much on Friday, with gainers outnumbering losers by two to one and the benchmark advancing further. The parallel drop of Greek bond yields showed that the market sees the issue of the bailout disbursement delay as a storm in an ouzo glass.

Coca-Cola HBC led the Greek stock index higher on Thursday as the biggest company listed in Athens enjoyed a rise of 3.50 percent, just as the majority of stocks headed lower. Turnover narrowly cleared the 30-million-euro bar.

Domestic and international concerns related to diplomatic and trade issues led the majority of stocks to losses at the end of Wednesday's session at Athinon Avenue.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index ended the session at 746.70 points, shedding 1.44 percent from Tuesday's 755.33 points.

The slight drop of the benchmark 10-year bond's yield, which was at 3.85 percentage late last night, and the positive sentiment across the majority of eurozone stock markets helped the Athens Exchange (ATHEX) to register moderate gains on Tuesday.