The main indices of Wall Street ended last night’s trading with positive signs, with the Nasdaq finishing the session at new record highs, getting a boost from Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Tesla.
The positive climate extended today to Europe, but also to the Greek Stock Exchange, which has increased its correlation with international markets, with buyers drawing confidence from the decline in oil prices and yields in the government bond market and achieving the outperformance of the index, compared with the main European indices.
It could easily be argued that today’s market momentum surprised even the most optimistic and was accompanied by a noticeable increase in turnover.
Otherwise, “nothing new”, at least as far as possible surprises from the day’s protagonists are concerned, while the banking index’s +3.82% leaves no room for doubt about the sector that also led today’s upward move.
In fact, not a few traders have begun to express strong displeasure at the market’s “one-sided” movement, but this is of little interest to the foreign driving forces.
Most domestic analysts declare themselves cautiously optimistic, pointing out the slow improvement in the international climate and noting that “markets are now pricing in a 24% probability of an interest rate increase at the Fed’s October meeting, versus 70% a week ago, according to CME’s FedWatch tool”.
On the other hand, according to the more conservatively minded, “the short-lived corrections and the return of stock market indices to new multi-year, or record highs, confirm in the most emphatic way that markets refuse to reprice the cost of equity risk, despite the unstable global environment, climbing ever higher on the ‘wall of worry’, and this may at some point be priced in with more aggressive turbulence”.
Private brokerage analysis departments are waiting in vain for the second reading of the first-half financial results to create room for selective placements and position restructurings, outside the banking sector and beyond the narrow confines of large capitalization.
The portfolios active at this stage in the ASE, apart from fundamentals, are interested only in high trading activity, which will ensure easy entry and exit. And the largest part of the board, unfortunately, clearly falls short of the above requirement.
Given that, for the umpteenth time, interest will be confined to the narrow limits of large capitalization and indeed to a relatively small number of titles, it is worth noting the close of OPTIMA (+4.26%) at new record highs, while the decline in oil had the expected impact on refinery stocks (ELPE -2.41%, MOH -2.29%).
On the other hand, it would be a significant omission not to note that even at the day’s highs and despite the fact that the ASE’s main indices moved permanently in positive territory, the ratio of advancing to declining stocks was neck and neck right up to the close of trading, a clear indication that a significant part of the board has become completely detached from daily developments.
With positive signs the major European markets, for the reasons mentioned above.
Coming to the bond market, the yield on the US 2-year note falls to 4.78%, on the 10-year to 5.26%. The 30-year yield at 5.63%. The yield on the Greek 10-year note at 4.376%, the yield on the corresponding French one at 4.72%.
“The recent ‘sell-off’ in US government bonds, is beginning to affect businesses, forcing companies to revise their borrowing plans and even reinforcing fears of defaults among companies with the lowest credit ratings. Borrowing costs for companies with the lowest credit ratings reached 17% this month, the highest level since May 2020,” according to the Financial Times.
On the other hand, billionaire Ray Dalio warned that “the market for US government bonds is vulnerable to a decline in demand from China and Japan, two of the largest foreign creditors of the US, highlighting a potential point of vulnerability for a sector that has undergone intense fluctuations this year”.
It is recalled that according to the economic calendar, the next meetings - announcements of the ECB are scheduled for 29/10 and 17/12/2026.
The corresponding ones of the Fed are scheduled for 28/10 and 9/12/2026.
The next scheduled monetary policy meetings of the BoJ are on 30/10 and 18/12 and of the BoE on 5/11 and 17/12.
The General Index moved permanently in positive territory, marking a day high at 2688.75 points (+1.85%). At 17.00 it stood at 2686.36 (+1.76%) and completed trading at 2686.2 points, with daily gains of 1.75%.
Turnover increased to 314 million, of which 58.6 million concern pre-agreed transactions (ALWN, BOCHGR, AKTR, OPTIMA, CENER, MTLN, ΑΛΦΑ, ΕΥΡΩΒ, ΜΠΕΛΑ, ΔΑΑ, ΓΕΚΤΕΡΝΑ, ΑΔΜΗΕ, ΠΕΙΡ, ΚΡΙ, PPC, ΕΤΕ, ΜΟΗ), with ΕΥΡΩΒ, ΠΕΙΡ, ΑΛΦΑ and ΕΤΕ accounting for 48% of the total gross trading value.
Of the total turnover of 314 million, 295.8 million concern transactions in FTSE 25 shares.