Bank of Cyprus lifts CSE to new record

Intense bid speculation over the shares of Bank of Cyprus Pcl pushed the stock and the general index of the Cyprus Stock Exchange to a record close on Friday and to levels not seen since 2000.

Bank of Cyprus (BOCY) was the most active on the CSE, closing 1.17% higher Friday to a new record close of EUR 12.06 or CYP 6.97 per share on total volume of EUR 7.64 mln.

The market cap of Bank of Cyprus remains the largest in Cyprus at EUR 6.6 bln.

In Greece, the Bank of Cyprus shares closed 1.16% higher at a fresh record close of EUR 12.20, beating the 0.06% advance of the ASE index, which ended at 4678.31 points.

The GENX in Cyprus ended at a fresh six year high of 4505.84 points on EUR 19.34 mln volume.

Marfin Popular Bank (CPB) was the second most active stock on the CSE on Friday, ending 1.19% higher at EUR 8.50 on EUR 3.62 volume. In Greece, the Marfin Laiki shares ended 1.18% higher at EUR 8.60. The market cap of Marfin Popular Bank based on the CSE close amounts to EUR 6.5 bln.

In related stocks on the ATHEX, the shares of Marfin Financial Group ended 0.40% higher at EUR 50.00, Egnatia Bank was down 0.71% at EUR 8.38, while Piraeus Bank was up 0.60% at EUR 26.80.

The Chairman of Piraeus, Michalis Salas is due on Tuesday in Cyprus and will have meetings with the Minister of Finance, the Governor of the Central Bank, The Archbishop and late Tuesday, the Management of Bank of Cyprus will host a dinner in his honour.

In other stocks, Ocean Tankers (OCT) was the third most active stock on the CSE, closing 11.5% higher at EUR 1.16 on EUR 1.3 mln volume, followed by SFS Group Pcl, up 3.7% at EUR 0.28 on EUR 1.03 mln volume and Hellenic Bank, down 1.1% at EUR 3.60 on EUR 871k volume.