The Stock Exchange ‘responds’ upwards to the ‘Super Thursday’ of the markets

Her Eleftherias Kourtali

The Athens Stock Exchange reacted with an upward reaction, with banking shares outperforming, following in the footsteps of international markets, following the Fed decisions, at a time when today, “Super Thursday” (“Super Thursday) as analysts call it, are meeting ECB The Bank of England and the Bank of Norway move in a different direction, with 20 central banks meeting for the last time in 2021 as of yesterday and in the days immediately following. The end of the PEPP with temporarily increased markets under the APP, the BoE is expected to keep interest rates stable for the time being, while the bank of Norway recently announced an increase in interest rates by 0.25%.

“The cube has been thrown,” with the Federal Reserve doubling its tapering rate to $ 30 billion a month and seeing three interest rate hikes in 2022 and a total of six interest rate hikes by the end of 2023, according to the Stock Exchange. Wall Street warmly accepted the announcements, with the ATHEX as well as the European markets moving today with their eyes focused on the ECB decisions that will shape the investment strategy for the next period.

The Greek stock market has not managed to exceed 900 points in recent days, refuting those who speculated that the upward movement will continue, despite the positive assessments of international companies for growth in Greece, but also the positive prospects of Greek banks which are preparing for a new a start that will be characterized by the increased credit expansion following the drastic consolidation of the red loans of the past.

Receiving a signal from the European markets today, the ATHEX is moving upwards, however, as Nikos Kafkas, head of the analysis department of Depolas Investments points out, this does not mean that we are complacent about the falling risks for the next period. .

In terms of meeting statistics, the General Index recorded an increase of 0.91% to 891.42 points, while the turnover stood at 5.3 million euros and the volume at 2.3 million.

According to the technical analysis, the first strong support for the General Index is the area of ​​860 points, while the resistance point is located at 900 points.

The index of high capitalization increased by 1.10% to 2,142.88 points, while the index of medium capitalization increased by 1.02% to 1,491.51 points.

The banking index outperformed with gains of 1.85% at 575.85 points, with Alpha Bank at 2.06%, Eurobank at 2.15%, Piraeus Bank at 1.61% and the National Bank at 1.20 %.

In non-bank blue chips profits of more than 2% are recorded by Viohalco, followed by an increase of more than 1% Ellaktro, ELPE, Jumbo, OPAP, Titan, ELVALHalkor and Terna Energy, while Sarantis is moving down (-1.15%) and Aegean (-0.40%).

The Fed signal and the ECB stance

The US Federal Reserve yesterday signaled the long-awaited end of its monetary stimulus next year, but gave an otherwise optimistic economic outlook, which boosted investor sentiment. The Fed presented a scenario in which the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the Omicron variant, gives way to a favorable set of economic conditions, with inflation falling sharply on its own, interest rates rising slowly and the unemployment rate to remain low in the future. years.

“The economy no longer needs increasing amounts of policy support,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told a news conference after the two-day policy meeting.

According to analysts, Powell was certainly optimistic and the market may have been inspired by his views – they seem to have created a dynamic attitude towards risk assets. After all, as they point out, the Fed is the regulator of market prices and influences everything.

The baton goes to the ECB, which is particularly concerned with the ATHEX as it is expected to solve the riddle of how to support Greece and Greek bonds to avoid fragmentation in the eurozone after the end of the PEPP. Compared to other major central banks such as the Fed and the Bank of England, which are responding to the spike in inflation by accelerating the end of bond markets and preparing the ground for interest rate hikes, the ECB is much softer in its stance. way that it will continue to buy bonds throughout the next year. According to analysts, the ECB’s stance is justified by the different situation of the eurozone economy at the moment, which of course means that if inflation proves to be more persistent then it risks a wrong policy.

In this context, the ECB’s “response” is expected to be to increase the monthly purchases of the regular quantitative easing program, to leave open the option of reactivating PEPP if necessary, using the remaining € 100 billion and – the more important for Greece – to extend the duration of the reinvestment program beyond the end of 2023, but also to increase its flexibility by using the funds from PEPP bonds that end with an emphasis on the most vulnerable countries, such as Greece and possibly Italy.