The year 2016 marked the restart of primary capital draining in the country, led by the domestic bond market, Socrates Lazaridis, Athens Stock Exchange chairman said.
Presenting a report on 2016, Lazaridis said that foreign investors’ participation remained at very high levels, around 61 pct of total market capitalization, but noted that the main characteristic of the last few years in the Greek stock market was increased volatility of prices, a trend which was recently recorded on expectations of concluding a second review of the Greek programme in December.
He said that turnover in the market will fall by 20 pct this year, surpassing an average rate of decline of 16.5 pct in Europe. Lazaridis said the biggest part of trading activity in the Greek market was made by banks, with the bank index losing ground for one more year. However, listed companies recorded an increase in operating profitability and cash distributions in the first half of 2016. A total of 96 listed companies recorded net profitability and 44 recorded losses, an improvement from 87 and 53 in the first half of 2015, respectively.
Lazaridis said the Greek market will launch three new categories of trading activity in the main market next year, high, mid and low trading activity, along with measures aimed to boost the energy market. The Athens Stock Exchange is also planning changes in the regulatory framework of ETFs, offering domestic investors easier access to products following international indexes.
He said that ASE was in advanced talks with the Stock Exchanges in China and Iran for the parallel listing and trading of ETFs, with at least two Greek companies interested in listing their bonds in this market.
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