The total capitalization of listed companies since the beginning of the year has increased by 19.212 billion euros.

In the last session before the election, the May 19 session, the total market capitalization was at 78,401 to increase by €6.7 billion by Thursday’s session.

The total capitalization of the Greek stock market exceeded 80 billion euros at the session of May 22 and this fact was noted as a result of capital inflows not only from foreign funds but also from domestic private portfolios. Foreign investors now own 63% of the total capitalization of the Greek stock market after the purchases made in June by foreign portfolios, which are taking a position in the Greek stock market in view of the upgrade of the Greek stock market.

The capitalization of the four shares of systemic banks, since the beginning of the year, has increased by 6.225 billion euros and stands at 17.692 billion euros.

The total market capitalization is expected to increase significantly over the next two years and according to Axia’s estimate, the capitalization of A.A. (as a % of GDP) was just 28.5% in 2022, compared to pre-crisis levels of 78%. Although a return to these levels is very difficult, the house believes that by 2025 this ratio will jump to 46% (about €105 billion capitalization using an estimated GDP of €230 billion after 2025). This will be a combination of higher valuations, taking into account the entry of new companies.

It is noted that for the Main Market, the public registrations of the three AEEAPs are being prepared by the end of the year: Trade Estates, Noval and Orilina, Optima Bank in the Autumn and Athens International Airport in the first quarter of 2024.

Coca Cola HBC is in first place in the capitalization ranking with 10.163 billion, followed by OTE with 6.504 billion, OPAP with 5.777 billion, Eurobank with 5.454 billion, Ethniki with 5.252 billion, Mytileneos with 4.715 billion euros, PPC with 3.814 billion euros, Alpha Bank with 3.515 billion, Piraeus with 3.471 billion euros and Jumbo with 3.257 billion euros.

Morgan Stanley sees cheap valuations

Despite the 35% increase recorded by the stock market since the beginning of the year, according to Morgan Stanley, the valuation of Greek shares, based on the profitability of listed companies, past or future (P/E Fwd), or with on a book value (P/BV) basis, even after this year’s rise it has a huge gap with international index stocks.

It is characteristic that, based on the earnings of the past 12 months, the P/E of the Greek MSCI is less than half of the global one (7.81 against 18.23). The relationship is similar in terms of the future P/E, i.e. based on the predicted earnings of the next 12 months (8.23 versus 15.55). In terms of price-to-book value, Greek stocks are trading just 14% above their book value (P/BV 1.14x), while for the global index the ratio is more than double, at 2.60x. Regardless of how the relative valuation of Greek stocks is evaluated, they are still extremely cheap, in relation to both emerging market stocks and the MSCI global index.

Of the high capitalization shares, since the beginning of 2023 the largest increase has been recorded by the shares of Aegean Airlines (+102.65%), Piraeus (+93.32%), Mytileneos (+62.56%), Ethnikis (+53.24%), PPC (+52.25%), Jumbo (+49.81%), Alpha Bank (+49.60%) Viohalco (+45.57%), Titan (+42.29%) and Eurobank (+39.34%).