OTE

Turnover at the Greek bourse slumped to a 14-month low on Monday as investors hold back due to the uncertainty hanging over negotiations between the government and its creditors.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index ended at 881.76 points, shedding 1.01 percent from Friday’s 890.74 points. The large-cap FTSE/ATHEX 25 index contracted 1.11 percent to 284.65 points.

Greece's biggest telecom operator OTE posted a 2 percent fall in third-quarter core profit on Thursday, hurt by lower network revenues in Romania and competition in its austerity-hit home market.

Concerns that local banks are planning to resort to fresh share capital increases without the participation of old shareholders – in a bid to reduce the stakes that the bank bailout fund currently holds in them – led Greek credit sector stocks lower on Wednesday, as the elation at the stress test results has all but worn off. The rest of the market followed suit, despite a promising start.

A combination of concern in the Eurogroup over the future of the Greek economy if the country were to exit the bailout program and of negative data on German growth led the Greek stock market to one of its worst sessions in the last decade yesterday. Resistance to keep the benchmark above 1,000 points was crushed, pushing the bourse to another year-low.

The benchmark for Greek stocks completed its fourth consecutive week of losses on Friday, giving up 3.38 percent from the previous Friday. However, things could have been worse as it narrowly avoided posting a new year-low by bouncing back from below 1,040 points.

The 2 percent growth that the Athens benchmark was showing at at 3 p.m. vanished as soon as European Central Bank Governor Mario Draghi finished his speech, after 4 p.m., inflicting losses on the majority of stocks on a day that had seemed so full of promise at the start.

Standard & Poor’s on Tuesday upgraded OTE telecom’s credit rating from BB- to BB and revised its outlook from negative to stable, arguing that even in the unlikely event of a Greek default, OTE will service its debts.

Prime Minister Victor Ponta admitted on Friday that Romania is being affected by the sanctions against Russia, but he added Romania must meet its commitments and assume the responsibility to show that nobody may change the international law.

Unmoved by the prospect of a likely credit rating upgrade for Greece by Standard & Poor’s on Friday, investors in local stocks were rather bearish on Thursday, while the trading volume was the lowest observed in the last eight sessions.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index ended at 1,166.60 points, shedding 0.36 percent from Wednesday’s 1,170.85 points.

The benchmark index of the Athens Stock Exchange closed 0.25 percent higher on Monday, reaching 1,159.25 points and chalking up a fifth consecutive day of gains.

During that period, the general index has delivered combined gains of 6.7 percent.

However, turnover was considerably lower than in previous sessions, reaching just 44.7 million euros.