ATHEX: Banks fuel rebound on Athens bourse

The Greek bourse staged an impressive rebound at the start of the week, as the banks index added a whopping 22.15 percent over the course of yesterday’s session.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index closed at 667.09 points, advancing 4.07 percent from Friday’s 640.99 points. The large-cap FTSE 25 index expanded 5.40 percent to end at 195.93 points.

Reports about Fairfax Financial Holdings planning a strong participation in Eurobank’s share capital increase, the prospect of National selling its Turkish subsidiary Finansbank, and the overselling of bank chips in the previous two weeks propelled the credit sector to major growth yesterday: Alpha climbed 25 percent, Piraeus increased 24.64 percent, National rose 20.55 percent and Eurobank earned 20 percent.

GEK Terna went up a significant 8.48 percent and Hellenic Exchanges added 7.46 percent, while EYDAP (down 0.35 percent) and Motor Oil (0.09 percent) were the only blue chips to head lower.

In total 56 stocks reported gains, 32 sustained losses and 13 ended unchanged.

Turnover amounted to 32.3 million euros, up from last Friday’s 19.4 million.