BOC hits CYP 1.89 in Greece

Bank of Cyprus shares trading in Greece rallied sharply higher on Tuesday to a closing high of EUR 3.30 or CYP 1.8945 on the back of a sharp rally in Greek shares.

With the gap between Cyprus and Greece widening to 4 cents, analysts are hoping that the BOC shares trading on the CSE will have no difficulty in breaking through the 1.86 resistance, which is also the high since June 16.

A sustained break on the technical charts would indicate another round of BOC strength towards the all-time high of 1.95, and in the process pull the CSE GENX back above 90 points.

It was interesting to note that the BOC shares staged their remarkable rally on Sophocleous on a massive increase in volume, with 960.088 shares changing hands on volume of EUR 3.14 mln or CYP 1.8 mln, more than double the CYP 720.000 traded on the CSE on Tuesday.

The Athens Stock Exchange meanwhile rallied to a 4-year high of 3252.13 points, up 2.5% on the day while the FTSE/ASE 20 large cap index was also 3% firmer at 1833.24 points. The rally followed the successful placement of a 16.4% stake in OPAP among foreign and Greek investors, in an issue which was 3.79 times over-subscribed, raising EUR 2.1 bln for the Greek state.

Traders in Greece are now bracing for the placement of a stake by the Greek government in Emporiki Bank, details of which will be revealed before the end of the week.

In Cyprus, the GENX closed up 1.68% at 85.46 points, the CSE Main/Parallel index finished up 2.59% at 1222.54 and the FTSE/CySE 20 large cap index ended 2.69% higher at 410.75 points.

Total volume amounted to CYP 719.923 on 578 trades with 43 titles closing higher, 13 closing lower, 12 unchanged while there was no activity on 101 trades, according to AGFN.