by Manos Hachladakis
Today’s on Athens Avenue turned into a correction session, as the expected profit taking after the mini-rally was added to the whirlwind from the wave of international liquidations caused by the measurement of the US GDP, discouraging some moves that the buyers had begun to attempt.
In particular, the General Index moved steadily downwards and with liquidations escalating towards the end, it ended trading with a 0.93% drop at 1,435.19 points, essentially at the lows of the day.
The turnover remained consistently high for the third day at 143.1 million euros, but today with 44.3 million through 26 packages (5 in Piraeus for 15.79 million, 7 in Eurobank for 12.6 million, 5 in Mytilene for 6.1m 1 big on Optima for 2.1m) with trading volume at 31m units.
The banking index led the losses down 1.16% to 1,249.87 points, the FTSE fell 0.95% to 3,499.66 points, as did the FTSEM mid-cap which ended at 2,292.1 points with -0, 98%.
The market had indicated since yesterday’s close that it would move towards locking in some of the significant gains of the recent mini-rally, during which it covered a distance of more than 100 points (from 1,357.3 points to the intra-session low on 4/16 to 1,462.68 at yesterday’s intrasession high) as it did, but the picture probably would have been better had the US GDP data not halted some buying that had begun to take place around mid-day.
Around 2 the DG even fully erased losses for a while and then moved slightly lower, but eventually saw buyers pull out completely and liquidations intensified after the US economy not only grew at its slowest pace in nearly two years (1 .6% significantly below forecasts for 2.4%) but also saw inflation (based on core PCE, the Fed’s preferred gauge) run in the quarter at 3.7% versus estimates of 3.4%.
Which sent bond yields skyrocketing and Wall Street into the deep red, as the path of inflation in particular pushes further away the timing of the Fed’s impending tapering.
On the dashboard
Among the minimal survivors of the day were Alpha (8.1 million) and Jumbo (3 million) with marginal gains of 0.25% and 0.56% respectively.
At the top of the turnover for another day was Piraeus with 34.7 million (15.7 million in packages) but with a drop of 1.98% to 3.921 euros, Eurobank with 22.6 million lost 1.34 % to 1.99 euros and the National with 20.4 million slipped to 7.56 euros with -1.25%.
In the same pattern as in the last few days, Mytileneos entered a “wedge” among the banks in the top 5 turnover positions, today in 4th place with 12.7 million, ending at 37.72 euros with -1.5%, with the market showing that he had discounted both the strong 1st quarter figures he presented before the opening, with a 10% increase in his profitability and 12% in EBIDTA, but also the pre-announcement of the group’s dual listing in London.
The biggest pressures on high capitalization were exerted on Viohalco (967 thousand euros) with -3.14%, Sarantis (1 million) with -2.5%, Motor Oil (2.9 million) with -2, 49%, ELVALHALCOR (200 thousand euros) with -2.36% and Ellactor (672 thousand euros) with -2.12%.
From there, with transactions worth 6.4 million, OPAP lost 1.81% to 16.28 euros, PPC with 3.2 million had reached 11.55 euros (+1.67%) but finally it closed at 11.3 euros with -0.53% and GEK TERNA with 1.6 million lost 1.09% at 16.26 euros.
Indicative of the climate of the day was that Optima, one of the protagonists of 2024, recorded significant losses of 3.56% at 10.28 euros with a turnover of 2.77 million.
In the middle capitalization, only Profile was saved with +2.06% to 4.46 euros (434 thousand euros), while PPA (65 thousand euros) lost 2.6%, Intralot (895 thousand euros) closed at – 1.2% and Intrakat (805 thousand euros) at -0.7%.
In the lower strata, EKTER moved impressively, both in performance with +4.5% to 4.56 euros and also in turnover with 767 thousand euros.
Across the board, sellers prevailed state by state, with 89 stocks moving down against 43 up.
The image internationally
In the US, the market, in addition to the worrying data for the economy, mentioned above, also has to deal with the strong dives of Meta and IBM after the results they announced yesterday.
Mark Zuckerberg’s giant, albeit by a distance, left behind the market estimates in the figures it presented for the first quarter, however the weak guidance it gave for the continuation was strongly problematic and it is moving with strong losses of 13%.
For its part, IBM briefly missed revenue forecasts and is plummeting 10%.
In this climate the Dow Jones dives 1.75% with losses of 700 points, the S&P 500 also falls by 1.5% and the Nasdaq by 2%.
In Europe, only the British FTSE 100 diverges positively and this with a marginal increase of 0.1%, while the German DAX moves to -1.4%, the French CAC to -1.55% and the pan-European Stoxx 50 to -1.65% .
Sellers also dominate the bond market, where the yield on the US 10-year is now above 4.7% and the 2-year is above 5% both up more than 7 basis points, while the Greek 10-year sees its yield at 3.568%.
Finally, oil remains unchanged today, Brent at $87.7 a barrel and WTI at $82.4 with slightly downward trends.
