GEK Terna

The bond issue clearly stole the limelight away from the local bourse on Tuesday, with investors focusing on the course of the 10-year note instead of buying Greek stocks, and sellers sending the benchmark back below 700 points.

The prospects of a Greek 10-year bond issue and a new tender for the sale of four coal-fired plants owned by Public Power Corporation saw the Athens bourse benchmark hit a new five-month high on Tuesday. Blue chips rose despite the marginal drop for the banks index and the decline in turnover.

The benchmark of the Greek stock market recorded a new four-month high on Thursday thanks primarily to the advance by bank stocks, which continued to rise as a solution concerning the protection of debtors' main residences appears to be near.

Greece on Thursday signed a concession allowing a Greek-Indian consortium to build a new airport on Crete, its biggest island.

Energy stocks led the way and banks recovered in time to help the benchmark revert to gains in Wednesday's session at Athinon Avenue and end near the day's high, albeit on the lowest daily turnover this week.

Last-minute profit taking during Tuesday's closing auctions at the Athens Exchange (ATHEX) inflicted minor losses on the benchmark after wiping out all of its earlier gains. However, the blue chip and banks indexes remained in positive territory, primarily thanks to Piraeus Bank's gains on the day.

Greek stocks presented a mixed picture after Wednesday's session, as a slight majority of stocks as well as the mid-cap and small-cap indexes headed lower, but the benchmark and blue chips continued to rise.

Stock prices at Athinon Avenue went from losses to gains over the course of Monday's session as the few active investors continue to believe the local bourse is underpriced after the successful bond issue a week ago. This helped the benchmark climb to a two-month high, even though that was on particularly low turnover.

The Public Power Corporation tender for the concession of the lignite plants at Meliti and Megalopoli has ended in failure, as was expected.

The PPC board rejected Mytilineos SA's bid for the Meliti plants on Friday, as well as the below-par offer by the Sev.en Energy-GEK Terna consortium for the entire portfolio that PPC is selling.

The benchmark of the Greek stock market closed at the day's low on Wednesday but still managed to hold on to a sliver of gains in the face of the blue chip index's marginal slide as mid-caps propped up the market. Turnover was the highest so far this week.