ATHEX: Confident start to week for stocks

The benchmark of the Greek stock market reached the verge of 850 points on Monday with gains that diminished during the day but sufficed to offer it notable growth after a week of significant ups and downs. This third northbound session was once again dominated by a strong showing by bank stocks, whose index has risen almost 9% over these last three sessions.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index closed at 849.89 points, adding 0.95% to Friday’s 841.91 points. The large-cap FTSE-25 index expanded 1.23% to end up at 2,051.03 points.

The banks index collected 1.82%, mainly thanks to Alpha, which jumped 3.17%. Eurobank grew 1.83%, Piraeus improved 0.92% and National earned 0.75%. Sarantis soared 5.38%, ElvalHalcor augmented 4.50% and Lamda Development was up 3.46%, while Hellenic Petroleum lost 4.78% and Motor Oil fell 4.23%.

In total 62 stocks posted gains, 30 suffered losses and 25 remained unchanged.

Turnover amounted to 50.2 million euros, down from last Friday’s €69.3 million.

In Nicosia, the general index of the Cyprus Stock Exchange increased 0.13% to close at 74.47 points.