The Athens Stock Exchange is showing mildly bullish trends heading into the completion of a strong week, with investor sentiment internationally showing clear signs of improvement today.
In particular, the General Index is moving at 1,422.4 points with 0.37% and turnover at 15 million euros, while 1.8 million pieces have been traded. The banking index is up 0.1% at 1,230.1 points, the FTSE is up 0.4% at 3,446 points, while the FTSEM mid-cap is at 2,315 points, up +0.07%.
Following a breakout earlier in the week that immediately made up for last week's losses and reestablished contact with recent 13-year highs, Stock Exchange became entangled in the tidal wave of international jitters brought on by US inflation, displaying impressive resistance to the selling wave but losing its initial momentum.
On the international front, yesterday's ECB meeting did not change much, with Christine Lagarde again indicating June as the starting point for the cycle of interest rate cuts but with asterisks, while in the US, calm was restored to some extent after the wholesale inflation report which, with its monthly slowdown, offset to some extent the concerns raised by headline inflation on Wednesday.
In today's trading, Mytilineos gives an initial boost with a gain of 2.35% at 34.46 euros with 3 large packages worth a cumulative 6.39 million euros, in the wake of the strategic deal with PPC worth 2 billion euros.
Banks are slightly bullish, with Alpha +0.55% and National Bank +0.1%, while Eurobank remains around unchanged and Piraeus is down 0.15%. Further support is provided by Coca Cola at +1.8% albeit with a small turnover of 30k euros, OPAP is up 0.9%, Jumbo 0.3%.
PPC at -0.6% and GEK Terna at -0.25% are both exerting some light pressure on the FTSE. In the mid-caps Intralot is up a modest 0.2% and Intrakat is up 1.1%, while Austriacard surrenders yesterday's gains at -3%. In the lower strata, Euroconsultants' 4% jump to EUR 1.31 stands out with an extremely high turnover of over EUR 250k from the first half hour of trading. In the overall picture of the board, buyers are in charge, with 55 stocks moving up against 32 down.
