Benchmark refuses to lose ground

The benchmark of the Greek stock market resisted heading south yesterday despite spending most of the day in the red and seeing its eurozone peers suffer losses. A late rally offset all of the day’s losses, although the blue-chip and the mid-cap indexes ended with a small decline and turnover remained at low levels.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index ended at 647.98 points, adding 0.18% to Friday’s 646.80 points. However, the large-cap FTSE 25 index contracted 0.15% to 1,568.01 points and the mid-cap index contracted 0.61%.

The banks index shrank 0.43% as Piraeus lost 2.69% and National fell 1.35%, while Alpha improved 0.47% and Eurobank advanced 0.40%.

Ellaktor jumped 6.85%, Motor Oil increased 2.46% and Jumbo gave up 3.97%.

In total 45 stocks recorded gains, 63 endured losses and 15 remained unchanged.

Turnover was the lowest of the last three weeks, amounting to 43.7 million euros, down from last Friday’s €58.6 million.

In Nicosia, the general index of the Cyprus Stock Exchange decreased 0.64% to close at 48.02 points.