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ASE pares losses

29/12/2014 17:58
The Athens stock exchange managed to pare its losses in the aftermath of the presidential election result.

The ATHEX general index closed at 819,81, a 3,9% decline from Friday's close.

It started the session under intense selling pressure as the investing community anticipated a failure of the parliament in electing a new president.

Despite the heavy losses the decline was accelerated as soon as the election result, although expected, became official reaching the lowest point of the day at 756,8 threatening to become one of its largest drops ever.

The index followed an upward path since then, up until the end of the session averting another disastrous performance.

The banking sector came under severe pressure with the four major banks witnessing intraday declines between 17% and 23,8%.

The four systemic banks ETE, ALPHA, EUROB and TPEIR eventually made a spectacular recovery closing at 1,43 (-7,74%), 0,459 (-0,22%), 0,191 (-7,73%) and 0,989 (1,96%) respectively.

The parliament's failure to elect a new president leads the country to early general elections thus prolonging the political instability and the uncertainty in the economy.

This development is expected to delay the implementation of the reform program while the potential rise to power of the leftist party SYRIZA may jeopardize the program itself.

SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras said after today's third and final presidential election that the end of the Memorandum, as the reform program is called, is a matter of time.

SYRIZA leads in the polls although its advantage lately narrowed. It currently ranges from 2,5% to 3,3%.