THE CYPRUS stock market yesterday continued the downward trend it set last week, shedding 6.73 points off the all-share index to close at 245.89 points.
The general price index was down 2.74 per cent, but the FTSE 20 index was down by 3.46 per cent, indicating that blue chip shares were losing ground.
Bank of Cyprus shares lost 11 cents to close at £3.52. Laiki Bank shares lost 14 cents to close at £3.40. Louis Cruise Line shares were down four cents to close at 48 cents, while Globalsoft shares shed seven cents to close at £5.16.
The Cyprus Airways (CY) share bucked the trend among blue-chip shares, gaining one cent to close at 50 cents. The CY share was heavily traded amid reports that the national airline was to lodge a major bid for Olympic Airways shares. An announcement on participation in the Olympic Airways IPO is expected today.
The CY stock leapt up by 20 per cent but heavy trading then forced it down to close at 2.24 per cent up, with 824,335 shares traded. The Louis share attracted more interest – 1,024,972 shares were traded – but lost 7.69 per cent.
EXEL shares posted the highest gains, growing by 7.33 per cent, while PSD shares came in second, gaining 5.76 per cent.
The market opened at 252 points, dipped slightly and then continued in a downward spiral, continuing a trend set on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week. Overall, the number of shares loosing ground outstripped those making gains by almost five to one. Every single sector was down.
The market, which has lost well-over half its value since the turn of the year, thus continued to dent the minor recovery it staged earlier in the month after its relocation to the IMC building outside Nicosia.
“This is the time of year when we are all supposed to give. However, the market is being quite selfish and has decided that it isn’t giving anything,” a web market analyst commented yesterday.
“The volume was even lower that Friday and the lowest it has been in a long time,” the analyst added.
Total traded value reached just £9,127,787.38.
Today, analysts expect that an announcement by Cyprus Airways concerning the Olympic Airways share issue and the entry of the Petrolina share onto the market to possibly boost trading.
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.
