The Athens Stock Exchange receives a strong banking boost to move higher, after the rapid coverage of Ethniki's (NBG) offer book.

Specifically, the General Index is up by 1.17% at 1,219.7 points, with a turnover of 15.3 million euros and a trading volume of 4.8 million shares.

The banking index leads the gains with a 2.3% increase to 979 points, the FTSE high-cap index rises by 1.4% to 2,964 points, and the FTSEM mid-cap index is at 2,006 points with a +0.6% increase.

National Bank naturally attracts interest with gains of 1.9% (5,588 euros) and increased turnover of 1.7 million euros.

Even more significant is the boost in the rest of the sector, with Piraeus Bank up by +3.6%, Alpha Bank by +2.3%, and Eurobank by +2.2%.

DEI (Public Power Corporation) continues its upward trend today with +1.3% and a turnover of 2 million euros, mainly due to two packages changing hands at prices of 10.36 and 10.34 euros, with a value of 648 and 372 thousand euros each.

Motor Oil jumps 3.5% and Cenergy 3.23%, OPAP and OTE gain 1.2% each, Mytilineos 1%, Aegean 1.6%, Jumbo 0.9% and HELPE 0.8%.

On the other hand, TERNA Energy is slightly down at -0.2%.

In the mid-cap sector, Intrakat is down 0.7%, Intracom is up 0.7% , Intralot continues today with high turnover but corrects -3.7%.