Shares rise for fifth successive day

SHARE prices rumbled on higher for the fifth successive session yesterday.

The day’s biggest winner was the Popular Bank, which rose by 15.5 cents to close at £5.49, the same level as the Bank of Cyprus, which inched higher by only six cents.

The spectacular rise in the Popular Bank shares brought it price parity with its close rival for the first time in weeks.

“All the cards of the Bank of Cyprus are already on the table, so it was time for the Popular Bank to rally,” said Stavros Agrotis of CISCO, the Bank of Cyprus’ brokerage and investment arm.

The all-share index inched up 1.30 per cent to close at 120.30 yesterday, less than four percentage points short of its all-time high of 124.03 recorded last month. The value of trade was a decent £10.21 million, of which £2.63 million were in the blue-chips of the banks and £4.4 million in the manufacturing sector.

Traders said the volume in manufacturing stocks was exceptionally high as a result of a single transaction involving 1.9 million shares in Cyprus Cement.

The biggest rise in the bourse’s seven sub-indices, however, was in the tourism companies, which rose by 2.95 per cent. The sub-index of the banks rose by 1.74 per cent, while manufacturing, although by far the busiest in yesterday’s trade, finished 0.95 per cent down.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.