The Athens Stock Exchange completed its third downward session, limiting losses to a minimum at a time when the international markets were moving at the pace of a mini sell-off after the Wall Street plunge, while also having the additional "weight" of the Eurobank dividend.

Specifically, the General Index moved steadily negative but closed at 1,463.82 points, with a slight decline of 0.2% away from the daily lows (at 1,450.32 points).

The banking index was under the greatest pressure, closing at -1.32% at 1,300.04 points but having recovered from the daily lows at 1,280.97 points.

The FTSE retreated to 3,562.77 points with -0.38%, as did the mid-cap FTSEM, which came in at 2,314.82 points with -0.5%.

THE PICTURE ON BOARD

In the banking sector, which dominated in terms of turnover today (49 million out of 96.5 million of the total), Eurobank (14 million) exerted the most pressure on the market with a 5.53% plunge to €2.05 as it traded without the dividend entitlement of €0.093.

At the same time, Alpha (5.9 million) moved to €1.681 and Piraeus (16.6 million) to €3.801, both with small losses of 0.24%, having both recovered from falls of more than 2%.

Ethniki (12.1 million) fared even better, not only erasing 1.6% losses but finally closing with a 0.98% gain at 8.432 euros.

The biggest support in the market, however, came from OTE (7.5 million), which, against the mood of the day, rallied 3.44% to 14.72 euros.

Metlen (3.98m) also provided some help, with +0.56% to 36.2 euros, but with investors showing that they had discounted the "explosive" figures announced before the opening.

On the other hand, only Lambda (921k) closed down more than 1% on the FTSE at 7.27 euros, with Aegean (694k) down -0.95%.

In the lower layers, Attica Bank (76k) moved to EUR 9.02 at +2.7%, while Thrace Plastics (81k) retreated to EUR 4.2 at -2.1%.