The Athens Stock Exchange continued its "silent" upward streak today (18/10), with buyers maintaining the lead for the 4th consecutive session, without impressing.

This confirmed that the Greek market is in a phase of prolonged accumulation, looking for the necessary catalyst that will manage to "break" the narrow range of 1,400-1,470 points and take the General Index to the recent peaks of 1,502 points.

The focus of today's session, however, was on Standard & Poor's, which will release its usual report on Greece this evening. A possible upgrade to "BBB" is more than welcome, although the most prevalent scenario is for a confirmation of the current rating at "BBB-" with a positive outlook. 

In this environment, in the last session of the week, the General Index posted a slight increase of 0.34% to 1,443.57 points, gaining about five points compared to Thursday's close (1,438.67 points).

The arc of daily fluctuations was fixed at five points (from 1,439.19 to 1,444.46 points), with a trading turnover of 120 million euros, of which 30 million euros were pre-agreed packages. 

The banking index completed its 4th consecutive green session as it finished +0.43% and 1,237 points, having shed less than 10% of this year's highs.

Piraeus shares gained +2.19% and EUR 3.867, Eurobank shares rose +0.73% and EUR 2.058, Alpha shares were almost unchanged at EUR 1.52, while NBG shares were limited to -0.64% and EUR 7.47.

In the high-cap index (+0.56% and 3,519 points), Metlen's shares expanded +2.1% and 33.9 euros, trying to regain lost ground. Autohellas and Viohalco gained 1.8% and 1.9%, respectively, with Aegean following at +1.1% and 10.5 euros. At the same time, PPC shares edged further closer to this year's highs of 12.5 euros (+0.5% and 12.1 euros), while OTE shares climbed to 16.1 euros, their best performance since August 2022. On the other hand, Jumbo shares folded to -0.9% and 25.9 euros, with Titan Cement shares following at -0.8% and 33.4 euros.