The stock market was driven into a retreat by developments in the Middle East and heightened geopolitical tensions following Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The series of bullish sessions was interrupted by the escalation of tensions, but it is encouraging that the DA managed to mitigate the initial losses and ended today’s session with “controlled” losses. Nevertheless, the run-up to the EU/US trade deal deadline (09/07) puts another worry factor on the markets.

In today’s session, the General Index closed at 1,835.40 points, down 1.06%, with the high of the day at 1,835.50 points and the low at 1,811.30 points. Trading activity stood at 282.86 million euros.

The high-cap index lost 1.16%, the mid-cap index -1.38%, while the bank index fell 1.09% to 1,824.91 points.

The biggest drop in bank shares was recorded by Alpha Bank, down 2.77% at 2.705 euros, followed by Piraeus Bank, down 1.26% at 5.50 euros, Eurobank, down 0.48% at 2.696 euros, and ETE, down  0.46% at 10.75 euros.

ElvalHalcor (+2.50%), MIG (+1.88%), HELPE (+1.55%) and ORILINA (+1.29%) recorded gains.

On the other hand, losses were recorded by Unibios (-4.76%), OPAP (-3.38%), Metlen (-1.10%), GEK TERNA (-0.40%), PPC (-0.86%) and Titan (-2.10%).

18 stocks moved up, 91 stocks moved down while 12 stocks remained stable

In international markets, both European stock exchanges and the main indices on Wall Street recorded losses.

In any case, markets had largely underestimated geopolitical risk over the past year, but the latest developments are changing the mood. Oil had earlier jumped as much as 13%, but then the rise was limited with the Brent contract at $72.96 a barrel at -5.19% and US crude at $71.61 a barrel at -5.25%.

Back in the domestic market, today is the AGM day for Trade Estates and Interlife, as well as the payment of the annual dividend to Alpha Trust Andromeda shareholders.

Also, the share capital increase process with a Public Offering of new ordinary shares of IDEAL Holdings was completed with over 2.5 times oversubscription.