Water supply and sanitation in Greece

On a day when Wall Street and the London Stock Exchange remained closed, the Greek bourse secured a rather satisfactory turnover of almost 50 million euros on Monday, with traders opting to position themselves ahead of this Friday's upcoming index rebalancing. Leading the benchmark to strong gains were bank stocks, which were oversold in previous sessions.

April ended at the Greek stock market on Thursday with some profit taking by traders who cashed in on this week's rise by specific stocks such as banks. Despite that daily drop, April closed with a 12.54 percent advance for the benchmark, to become the first month this year with an increase for the bourse.

Despite Wednesday's early gains at Athinon Avenue, in line with most eurozone bourses, the session ended with a relatively small increase on particularly low daily turnover, which points to the market's reservations about the economy's emergence from the coronavirus crisis, especially as far as the creation of new nonperforming loans for Greek lenders is concerned.

Despite the pressure on banks at the Greek bourse on Tuesday that looked as though it might drag the benchmark lower still, most of the rest of the market posted healthy gains that saw the main index come off a four-year low, on improved turnover too.

Greek stocks on Tuesday reclaimed some of the ground lost in Monday's 8.3 percent slump, on very encouraging trading volume, with banks jumping by over 5 percent to cover almost half of the previous day's losses. 

Stocks in the Greek bourse were once again swayed by banks that dragged the market lower on Tuesday, accelerating the benchmark's decline toward the 900-point mark.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index ended at 911.82 points, shedding 0.86 percent from Monday's 919.77 points. The large-cap FTSE 25 index contracted 0.95 percent to 2,291.80 points.

The bond issue on Tuesday and Wednesday's T-bill auction appeared to have wrung investors dry at Athinon Avenue, as Wednesday's stock session - which resulted in more winners than losers while the benchmark inched lower - had the lowest turnover of the last 76 trading days.

Many investors opted to sit out Thursday's trading session at Athinon Avenue ahead of Friday night's verdict by Fitch on Greece's rating and outlook, with sellers putting an end to the benchmark's seven-session rising streak.

Friday's bourse session was much like Thursday's, with a mild increase for the majority of stocks as the benchmark climbed to levels unseen since February 2015. This sedate growth is slowly convincing observers that the main index may well capture the 1,000-point level in the coming months.

The Greek bourse on Tuesday recovered the ground it had lost on Monday but for the time being it appears unable to secure the boost required to reach the psychologically important level of 1,000 points. Turnover also improved.