With banks and especially NBG giving a strong boost, the Athens Stock Exchange returned to upward movement after a two-day nervousness.

In particular, the General Index closed at 1,457.74 points with a 0.75% rise near the daily high (1,458.99 points). Turnover exceeded 100 million (at 107.25), but with 19.3 million in 20 blocks (4 in OTE for 7.2 million, 2 in Metlen for 2.4 million, and 1 in Jumbo for 1.5 million), with a trading volume of 21 million blocks.

The banking index led the rise with a 2% jump to 1,308.76 points, the FTSE gained 0.86% to 3,553.98 points, and the mid-cap FTSEM followed with +0.69% to 2,316.54 points.

Athens Avenue immediately returned to the upward rhythm of July, with banks taking their familiar leading role, both after another positive report, this time from S&P, and especially after the ECB meeting that kept interest rates unchanged as widely expected.

Even more so, President Christine Lagarde stood (as did the announcement of the decision) on the increased inflation risks and left "completely open" all possibilities for the Eurobank's moves in September without signalling a second rate cut (which would consequently limit banks' interest rate margins).

As mentioned above, NBG dominated the board, both in terms of turnover with 20 million (only 1.2 million in packages) and in terms of performance with a 3.17% jump to 8.2 euros. At the second level, Eurobank (7.9 million) gained 1.89% to 2.159 euros, Piraeus (14.1 million) was up 1.08% to 3.851 euros, and Alpha (7.3 million) was up 1% to 1.674 euros.

In the other buyers' picks, PPC (1.5m) put in an upward reaction with +1.4 at 11.41 euros and Jumbo (4.1m) with +1.1% at 25.28 euros, with Sarantis (202k) following closely at 11.22 euros with +1.08%, while OTE with a turnover of 14.7m moved slightly upwards with +0.57% at 14.18 euros.

On the other hand, against the mood of the day, Titan (2.1m) fell 1.59% to 30.9 euros, with ELPE (1.7m), AIA (886m), and Ellaktor (647m) all down around 0.7%.

In the lower layers, Thrace Plastics (275k) stood out with +2.59%, Intralot moved to 1.27 euros (+0.95%) with a high turnover of 1.6 million and Dimand (158k) continued upwards today with +1%.

On the other hand, Attica Bank (154k) erased gains of up to more than 4% and fell to 13.05 euros, with -1.88% pending developments on the approval of the merger with Pancreta Bank.