Athens News Agency: News in English, 01-03-14

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Foreign Exchange Rates - Thursday

[02] Elbisco-Loan

[03] Weather Forecast-Thursday

[04] ASE-close

[01] Foreign Exchange Rates - Thursday

Thursday's buying rates

U.S. dollar 368.139

German mark 172.829

French franc 051.531

Pound sterling 536.208

Irish punt 429.202

Belgian franc 008.379

Luxembourg franc 008.379

Dutch guilder 153.389

Italian lira (100) 017.457

Austrian schilling 024.565

Danish kroner 45.271

Swedish kroner 36.823

Finnish mark 056.852

Spanish peseta 002.032

Portuguese escudo 001.686

Japanese yen (100) 307.120

Swiss franc 220.051

Norwegian kroner 41.157

Cyprus pound 583.966

Canadian dollar 238.003

Australian dollar 183.851

[02] Elbisco-Loan

Elbisco Holding SA, formerly known as Hellenic Biscuits, has secured a five-year, six billion drachma loan to acquire a majority stake in the share capital of a company abroad, it told the Athens Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

The target firm, a manufacturer of flour, bread and bakery products, is based in a Balkan country, Elbisco said in a letter to the bourse.

[03] Weather Forecast-Thursday

Sunshine is forecast around the country on Thursday, with scattered cloud in the morning in Macedonia, Thrace and the eastern Aegean islands. Winds will be northwesterly, light to moderate, and strong at sea in the south. In the north, temperatures will range from 4C to 16C; on the rest of the mainland and the Ionian from 7C to 18C; and in the Aegean islands from 10C to 19C. Sunny skies over Athens with temperatures between 9C and 18C. Mostly sunny in Thessaloniki, with temperatures from 6C to 16C.

[04] ASE-close

Equity prices ended Wednesday's session sharply lower on the Athens Stock Exchange hit by waves of selling in the last hour of trading following sharp losses in other European markets.

Traders said signs of a new fall in US markets (based on pre-opening trends in the Dow Jones and Nasdaq index contracts) undermined sentiment in Europe and led foreign institutional investors to heavy selling in blue chip stocks in the Greek market, particularly telecommunications stocks.

The general index dropped below the 3,100 level for the first time in the last 25 sessions, dramatically reversing an early advance which pushed the index at 3,283.33 points during the session.

Trade was extremely volatile with several share prices swinging from the day's 12 percent limit up to the day's 12 percent limit down at the close.

The general index ended 5.19 percent lower at 3,063.69 points, with turnover a heavy 502.60 million euros, or 171.26 billion drachmas, of which 12.17 million euros accounted for pre-agreed block trades.

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for blue chip and heavy traded stocks ended 4.27 percent lower at 1,750.13 points, and the FTSE/ASE 40 index plunged 7.20 percent to 367.55 points.

The parallel market index for smaller capitalisation stocks ended at 332.63 points, off 8.97 percent.

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