A month of intense volatility was completed with a controlled retreat, during which the Athens Stock Exchange recorded a new 13-year high with a mini rally of almost 100 points since the de-escalation of geopolitical tension in the Middle East.

In today's session, the General Index moved mostly down but within a narrow range of 11.16 points (low at 1,448.09 and high at 1,459.25), finally ending the trading session at 1,448.48 points with -0.48%.

Turnover soared to 197.33 million euros, mainly due to the 32.8 million packages that passed to the placement for 15% of Austriacard, but even without them, it was extremely high at 164.5 million euros, of which 14.4 million euros in 21 other packages (5 in Eurobank for 5.8 million euros and 5 in ETE for 4.5 million euros) with a trading volume of 44.41 million shares.

The banking index fell for the second day today by 1.5% to 1,237.38 points; the FTSE fell 0.61% to 3,512.98 points; as did the mid-cap FTSEM, which closed at 2,371.02 points down -0.11%.

Among the main buyers' picks, ELPE (1.5m) stood out with a 2.37% gain at EUR 8.43, and Aegean (2m) followed closely at EUR 12.6 with +1.94% after it approved a dividend of EUR 0.75 per share for the 2023 financial year.

Ellaktor (1.6m) moved to 2.62 euros with +1.35%, Cenergy (1.9m) to 7.94 euros with +1.15% and after another strong quarter, index heavy Coca Cola which saw its revenues increase by 12.6% gained 0.93% to 30.36 euros (on turnover of 635k euros).

In banks, Eurobank, with a turnover of 27.5 million, was differentiated from the decliners by remaining unchanged.

In the rest of the sector, profit-taking continued with sellers focusing on Piraeus, which weighed on the board at -3.3% at 3.775 euros and turnover at 27.5 million euros, with investors showing that they had discounted its strong first quarter figures, with a profitability of 233 million euros and a return on equity of 16.5%.

NBG, with the highest turnover of the day (excluding Austriacard) at 29.59 million, fell to 7.56 euros, down -1.14% despite becoming the first bank to regain investment grade status, and Alpha, with 7.5 million, fell 1.7% to 1.592 euros.

OPAP continued to be under pressure today following the dividend cut yesterday, closing at EUR 15.61 with -1.5% on transactions worth EUR 8.8 million. OTE (5m) was also down -0.9%, PPC (4.1m) -0.88%, and TERNA Energy (2.3m) -0.7%.

In the mid-cap sector, Austriacard, with a turnover of EUR 33.1 million due to the packages, posted a small loss of 0.3% at EUR 6.58. Epsilon continued steady at its public offer price of EUR 12 million with a turnover of EUR 7.7 million, while Intrakat (EUR 922 million) rose 1.12% and Profile (EUR 562 million) gained 1.96%. On the other hand, Intracom (545 thousand euros) fell by 1.88%.