A return to the rally was registered on the Athens Stock Exchange after a slight correction on Friday, with buyers completely dominating. Banking stocks, index-weighted securities, and smaller-cap stocks were in the spotlight, with the market boosted by a favorable international environment and a positive report from the Hellenic Economic Commission.

As domestic analysts usually note, investors appreciate the recovery of the investment level, the increase (later) in AX. in developed markets, while there are no concerns about political risks ahead of the elections.

In the statistics of the session, the General Index closed with an increase of 2.32% to 1092.91 points, and the turnover amounted to 141.89 million euros. The Large Cap Index closed up 2.09% to 2664.19 points, the Mid Cap Index closed up 2.20% to 1635.52 points, while the Banking Index advanced 2.84% to 863. 06 points.

As the overall index closes above 1041, the trend remains aggressively up.

Of all the blue chips, no company closed, while Aegean spun off with 7.04% growth, followed by Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank, HELLENiQ ENERGY, Motor Oil and Lamda Development with over 4% growth and more than 3% PPC, ELVALHalcor and Quest.

Another positive report from Greek banks added to the euphoria after a flurry of reports from local and international investment houses of late. Wood said he remains a buyer of Greek banks despite the rally as he believes their very good performance will continue. And the reason is that although the valuation gap with the European sector has narrowed, the outlook for Greek banks is still not fully priced in by the market. The catalysts for further growth, according to Wood, will be the strong macroeconomic performance of Greece, the positive impact of the ECB interest rate hike, healthy growth in corporate lending and good trends in asset quality. At the same time, the decisive factors for the activities of Greek banks will be the results of the fourth quarter of 2022 and the assessments of the administrations for 2023, possible dividend payments, elections, raising Greece to investment grade and withdrawing investments from HFSF.

As Ilias Zacharakis of Fast Finance points out, it took the General Index 30 sessions and 8 bullish weeks in 2023 to lock in a 15% gain, while so far corrections have occurred intrasessionally. “The market needs a way out – a correction to at least 1033 units, which is also the nearest support,” the analyst notes, however. But as long as the general index closes above 1041 points, the trend remains aggressively up, and consolidation of 1033 points may lead to the 1000 points zone.