Percentage

The Greek stock market was no exception to the rule in most eurozone bourses on Monday, where investor skittishness resulted in moderate losses and low trading volumes. Local traders may also be waiting for today to position themselves in the new seven-year Greek bond.

A mixed session at the bourse on Friday brought the first post-election week to a close with losses for the benchmark, while the market also used some of its cash availability to cover the bond issue by National Bank.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index closed at 858.33 points, shedding 0.58 percent from Thursday's 863.33 points. On a weekly basis it shrank 4.06 percent.

European slaps on Athens' wrist over handouts by the previous government that are seen endangering the budget's targets, inflicted extensive losses on Greek stocks on Tuesday, and came hand-in-hand with a rise in Greek bond yields. Sazka's public offering for OPAP shares it does not own did not help prices either.

The last week before the general election ended in the Greek bourse on Friday on yet another 53-month high, as Greek politics is about to experience a shift after 54 months of SYRIZA-led administration. Stocks were split between winners and losers and the blue-chip index was virtually unchanged.

The Greek stock market completed its best six-month period in seven years on Friday, as the benchmark recorded fresh gains of more than 1 percent, although uncertainty set in at the 870-point mark. The main driver of this growth has been the banks index, which has jumped 83 percent since the start of the year.

Greek 10-year government bond yields pulled back on Wednesday from the 3 percent record low hit on Monday after dropping 20 basis points.
They were still close to all-time lows at 3.15 percentage points ahead of a general election which will take place on July 7.
[Reuters]

Two days after the European Parliament elections, the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission proposed a 4.5 percent average increase in the price of heating. The biggest increase is in Razgrad and Gabrovo, there is only a reduction for the company in Sliven.

The National Liberal Party (PNL) obtained 26.89 percent of the votes in the elections to the European Parliament held on Sunday, whereas the Social Democratic Party (PSD) 22.89 percent and the Save Romania Union (USR) PLUS Alliance 21.78 percent, according to the partial data provided by the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) on Tuesday.

Eurobank's stock accounted for almost three-quarters of trading at the Greek bourse on Wednesday ahead of the lender's return today to the MSCI Standard Greece Index. Still, Eurobank ended lower, as did the benchmark.

More than half of Greeks in their mid-20s to mid-30s live with their parents, a significantly larger proportion than the average of 28.5 percent in the 28-member European Union, according to the results of a survey by the bloc's statistics service Eurostat which were made public on Tuesday.