Market returns from holiday slump

Jean Christou

As the island’s holiday season drew to a close yesterday the market rebounded sharply after a seemingly endless losing streak, to close 1.6 per cent up at 388.33 points on a volume of £29.2 million

The all-share index opened on a downward note hovering around the 373-point mark until mid-session before climbing steadily to gain another five points by closing.

All sectors ended in the black with the ‘other’ companies sector leading the way showing gains of 3.94 per cent, the trading sector 3.22 per cent and tourism companies 3.17 per cent. Modest gains of between one and two per cent went to the manufacturing and insurance sectors, while banking stocks appear to have missed the boat, gaining only 0.09 per cent.

Bank of Cyprus (BoC) lost three cents to close at £6.41, while Laiki Bank ended at £9.33, up five cents. Hellenic Bank also gained slightly adding one cent to finish at £2.14.

Star performers yesterday were Toxotis, which jumped 27 cents to close at £2.95 with 1.39 million shares changing hands. GlobalSoft, amid heavy trading, and Salamis Tours both gained 27 cents to close at £5.10 and £2.30 respectively.

Other heavily traded stocks included Multichoice which gained seven cents to end at £1.17 as 1.04 million of its shares were traded, and Dodoni which added four cents on a traded volume of 1.55 million shares to close at 13 cents.

Broker Demos Stavrides said most of the trading took place in four major stocks with shares being bought in blocks of between 10,000 and 20,000 indicating that institutional investors had hogged the floor.

“We expect this to continue for a few days if the stocks manage to maintain a healthy increase and not lose the feeling among investors might change,” he said.

The biggest loser yesterday was Glory Worldwide Holdings, which slipped 24 cents to end at £5.16.