Cyprus stocks tumble to five year lows

The Cyprus Stock Exchange General index tumbled to a fresh five year low of 861.54, taking its losses since the start of the year to 21.8% as banks remained under heavy selling pressure, in tandem with a major decline in Greek stocks, which saw the XA General declining to levels not seen since March 2003.
The CSE General index is now back at levels last seen in October 2004, when the new index was relaunched at the base price of 1000.
A report by Moody’s that it may downgrade western European banking shares with exposure to central and east European (CEE) countries where many Greek banks are heavily exposed hurt sentiment, forcing Greek banking shares lower, which in turn affected negatively the mood on the two largest Cypriot banks, which are listed on the XA.
Bank of Cyprus tumbled 4.99% on the day to a fresh record low of EUR 1.96, taking its year-to-date losses to 27%. Marfin Popular Bank fell in tandem to EUR 1.55/share, taking its losses since the beginning of the year to 19.7%. Hellenic Bank, which has no exposure in the Balkans fared much better, glued to the EUR 0.95/share level, which is very close to its 30-day moving average. Since the start of the year, HB is down 8.7%.
In Greece, banking stocks also had to endure negative remarks by Bank of Greece Governor Georgos Provopoulos calling on Greek banks to set aside more of their profits against bad debt provisions. The XA General index closed at 1603.80, down 5.2% on the day taking it to levels last seen since March 2003.
National Bank of Greece ended 9.4% lower at EUR 11.40, Piraeus was down 5.8% at EUR 4.52, Eurobank was down 3.8% at EUR 4.48 while Alpha Bank was down 2.64% at EUR 5.16.
The earnings report by Coca-Cola Hellenic, which reported a 10% decline in 2008 profits to EUR 425 mln further undermined sentiment.