Greece pulls BOC higher

A new round of strength in Bank of Cyprus shares in Greece was instrumental in pulling the BOC shares to another record close in Cyprus at near five-year highs as volume climbed to new record highs in both Cyprus and on the shares of BOC trading on Sophocleous.

BOC shares in Greece rallied a spectacular 4.5% on Monday to a fresh five-year high of EUR 5.94 or CYP 3.40 on 4 mln shares volume worth EUR 23.9 mln or CYP 13.7 mln, which was double the total volume of CYP 6.2 mln transacted on the CSE.

The BOC shares trading on the CSE rallied in tandem with the rally in Greece, ending at a fresh record of CYP 3.31, which just a notch lower than the CYP 3.38 high touched on January 19, 2001 according to Financial Mirror data. Total volume on the BOC shares on Monday amounted to CYP 4.13 mln.

The Monday rally on BOC brought the weekly gains to 8.5% and the year-to-date gains to 25.8%, according to Financial Mirror data.

Laiki Bank was the second most active on Monday closing at CYP 2.20, taking its total ytd gains to 20%, while Hellenic Bank ended at 79.5 cent for 39.5% gain since the start of the year.

Among the Main market stocks that managed to gain was SFS Group Public Co. , which was up at a fresh record of .095, taking its weekly gains to 20% while since the start of the year, SFS is up 42%.

The CSE GENX (Main & Parallel) index also closed at a fresh record of 2105.61 points.