The stock market closed the week ending with significant losses. The Public Offering of 10% of National Bank’s shares monopolized the interest, while the geopolitical risk formed a negative climate in the markets.

Risk aversion is evident as geopolitical tensions rise in the Middle East. Iran’s involvement in the war with Israel has upgraded geopolitical risk, causing a complete reversal in market direction.

Oil prices could jump as much as $20 a barrel if Iran’s output takes a hit, according to Goldman Sachs.

UBS does not “see” an all-out war in the Middle East and estimates that flows of energy products from the Middle East will continue without continuous interruption. While UBS expects further volatility in the coming months amid heightened tensions in the Middle East and ahead of the US election in November, it believes investors should not liquidate in response to major portfolio adjustments.

“Bullish” on the course of the stock market, says Optima Bank, pointing out that the recent underperformance is justified and results in Greek shares now having a bigger discount and more attractive valuations.

The underperformance is due to : a) higher exposure to geopolitical risk due to being geographically close to both the Middle East and Ukraine. b) the lower liquidity: the capital market has reheated, with IPOs of 3 billion (Athens Airport, Noval Property), private placements of Piraeus, GEKTERNA, Mytileneos, Jumbo) and bond issues and these developments “activate” a wait-and-see attitude for investors while at the moment, the placement of Ethniki is also “running”, followed by AMK of Cenergy. c) the rally after the two-year rally.

Its top picks for the rest of the year and early 2025 are: Piraeus (target price 6.00 euros), Ethniki (12 euros), Eurobank (2.80 euros), Metlen (49 euros), Titan ( 40.6 euros) and Cenergy (12.6 euros).

The General Price Index closed the week at 1,437.88 units, against 1,468.70 units the previous week, marking a weekly drop of 2.10%, while since the beginning of the year it has recorded gains of 11.19%.

The FTSE/ASE 25 large-cap index closed the week down 2.62% and since the beginning of 2024 is up 11.57%. The FTSE MID mid-cap index closed down 1.61% for the week, but is up 2.48% since the start of the year.

The banking index closed the week with a drop of 3.84%, while since the beginning of 2024 it has recorded gains of 15.67%.

The total value of transactions in this week’s sessions was 1.418 billion euros, while the average daily value of transactions was 283.729 million euros against 131.651 million euros.

The total market capitalization this week decreased by 2,251 billion euros and reached 100.578 billion euros, while since the beginning of the year it has increased by 12.69 billion euros.