TRADING volumes swelled to six-month highs on the equity market yesterday on strong buying interest from institutional investors who hopped from banking to smaller capitalised stocks in alternate profit-taking to speculative buying.
Commercial stocks, prodded by CTC, Woolworth and Ceilfloor gains, led advancing sectors with a 4.7 per cent jump, with the "other" category following with a 2.9 per cent rise.
The banking sector underperformed the broad uptrend, closing with a 0.5 per cent advance and paring stronger gains registered in pre-trading and early in the session. The all-share index ended 1.01 per cent higher to 559.26, see-sawing in a relatively narrow band of 565.25 and a low of 558.96.
"The market is going quite well. There is momentum on buying interest. It is good to see small steady steps," said Andreas Damianou, managing director of Argus Financial Services Group.
Traders said attention was focused on the annual general meeting of Bank of Cyprus which was held later yesterday afternoon. BoC opened some 28 cents stronger but was hit by strong pressure which saw it lose most of its intraday gains and close with a two cent increase to nine pounds.
There was also strong interest reported in Laiki after a report in a daily newspaper yesterday that it had taken over a Greek brokerage. The report was later confirmed by bank officials, who however declined to name the institution in Greece pending notification of Greek authorities.
Bank official Andreas Stylianou said the brokerage had a turnover of three trillion drachmas a year and had a significant segment of the Greek market. "This move is part of the bank’s strategy to offer a full range of financial services in Greece," he said.
The purchase, the cost of which was not fully disclosed, would also have a positive effect on the bank’s plans to list its share on the Greek stockmarket in future.
Laiki has said a dual listing of its shares on the Athens Stock Exchange is among its future plans, but have not set a specific date. It is speculated, however, that they target the first half of 2001.
They plan to first take their group share to the Greek stockmarket, and for that to be followed by subsidiary Laiki Hellas. Laiki posted a 13 cent increase in the price of its share to 13.07 pounds on a turnover of 369,826 shares.
Louis were back in prominence yesterday with 3.6 million shares changing hands, topping volume ranks and adding nine cents to £2.15. Droushia followed with 1.7 million shares traded as it retreated a cent to £1.02.
Aristo Investments, the investment arm of Paphos-based real estate developer Aristo Investments, made its debut on the market yesterday. It opened above its issue price at £1.15 and negotiated a band of 93 cents to £1.19 before closing unchanged at £1.15. The stock was heavily traded with a volume of 982,000 shares.
