The current week includes three more trading sessions, with the domestic market remaining in an Easter mood. Of course, this not has not prevented the Athens Stock Exchange General Index from moving close to the highest levels of the last 13 years.
Since the beginning of the year, the index has jumped 12.5%, with the cumulative gains in the last 12 months exceeding +33.5%, and the capitalization near 100 billion euros – for the first time since 2009.
May is considered quite decisive for the subsequent course of the General Index, as investors look forward to developments which will lay the foundations for approaching or even exceeding 1,500 points. Therefore, the market needs to gain around 50 points in a reasonable period of time.
In any case, however, the market seems to be stabilizing at increasingly higher levels, with the first main “fort”, as analyst Petros Steriotis reported, being placed at 1,420 points. The next ones are set at 1,360 points and 1,310 points.
4% dividend yield
New record profits were published by the 136 listed companies (exceeding 10.3 billion euros) in 2023, forcing several managements to announce the distribution of generous dividends. According to Cyclos Securities, the average dividend yield is 4% on the current market capitalization.
Meanwhile, first quarter financial results announced by Greek banks, Mytilineos, Jumbo, Athens International Airport are highly encouraging so far.
All this, combined with the announced or pending corporate deals and scenarios for new business deals, especially in the Information Technology and Energy sectors, continue to support the valuations on the stock market, with many listed companies recording new historical high record levels.
The Greek market has nine listed companies with a stock market value of more than 4 billion euros (Coca Cola, Eurobank, National Bank, OTE, OPAP, Mytilineos, Piraeus Bank, PPC and Jumbo), while the number of companies with a capitalization of at least 2 billion euro jumps to 15.
