The Athens Stock Exchange (ASE or ATHEX; , ''Chrimatistírio Athinón'') is the

stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

, based in the capital city of

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

. It was founded in 1876. There are currently five markets operating in ATHEX: regulated securities market, regulated derivatives market, Alternative market, carbon market (for EUAs) and OTC market. In the regulated securities market investors can trade in

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

s, bonds, ETFs and other related

securities A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...

. On the

172 stocks are currently traded representing 166 companies. Athens Stock Exchange fully owns the Athens Exchange Clearing House or ATHEXClear, a

central counterparty clearing house A central clearing counterparty (CCP), also referred to as a central counterparty, is a financial market infrastructure organization that takes on counterparty credit risk between parties to a transaction and provides clearing (finance), clearing a ...

, and ATHEXCSD, a

central securities depository A central securities depository (CSD) is a specialized financial market infrastructure organization holding securities such as shares or bonds, either in certificated or uncertificated ( dematerialized) form, allowing ownership to be easily tra ...

History

The Athens Stock Exchange started trading in 1876. Its day-to-day running has been assigned to ''Hellenic Exchanges – Athens Stock Exchange S.A.'', whose shares are listed on the exchange (). Athens Stock Exchange changed into public entity in 1918. In 1995 ASE was transformed into public limited company with the only shareholder – Greek state. Greek state sold 39.67% of the shares in 1997, and 12% in 1998 through private placement. State shares were decreased to 47.7% in 1999. The derivatives market started trading in August 1999 after Athens Derivatives Exchange (ADEX) and the Athens Derivatives Exchange Clearing House started operations. In 2002 the Athens Stock Exchange and the Athens Derivatives Exchange merged to form the Athens Stock Exchange. The Athens stock exchange was closed on 27 June 2015 because of the

Greek government-debt crisis Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family ** Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kn ...

. It reopened on 3 August 2015 and lost more than 16% in the day's trading with certain bank stocks plummeting 30%, the daily change limit. On 23 August 2023, the company formed

EuroCTP EuroCTP (European Consolidated Tape Provider) B.V. is a joint venture of 14 bourses, intending to tender for the provision of a consolidated tape (CT) for financial trading in the European Union (EU). The selection process, arranged by the Europ ...

as a joint venture with 13 other bourses, in an effort to provide a consolidated tape for the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

, as part of the

Capital Markets Union The Capital Markets Union (CMU) is an economic policy initiative launched by the former president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker in the initial exposition of his policy agenda on 15 July 2014. The main target was to create a Eur ...

proposed by the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

. The Athens Stock Exchange is a member of the

Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges The Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges (FEAS) is a non-profit international organization comprising the main stock exchanges in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. The purpose of the Federation is to contribute to the coopera ...

Location

Until 2007, the exchange was located on Sofocleous Street, in the central business district of Athens. For this reason the Exchange and Sofocleous St became synonymous with each other. It is now located in its new headquarters at 110 Athinon Street, also called Kavalas Street. The exchange's trading hours are from 10:00am to 05:20pm Monday to Friday, and is closed on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays declared by the Exchange in advance.

Operations

ATHEX has over 30 indices. The six main indices are: Composite Index (''GD''),

FTSE/Athex Large Cap The FTSE/Athex Large Cap is the stock index of the twenty-five largest companies on the Athens Stock Exchange. the stocks comprising this index are: Viohalco, Coca-Cola HBC AG, EYDAP, Terna Energy, Lamda Development S.A., Hellenic Pet ...

(''FTSE'', also known as ''FTSE 25''), FTSE/Athex Mid Cap Index (''FTSEM''), FTSE/Athex Market Index (''FTSEA''), FTSE/ATHEX Global Traders Index Plus (''FTSEGTI'') and FTSE/ATHEX Factor-Weighted Index (''FTSEMSFW''). The Athens Composite index started trading in 1980, its High 6355.04 set on 17 September 1999. Companies listed on the exchange are regulated by the '' Hellenic Capital Market Commission''. As of 2 February 2021 on the Athens Exchange 166 companies are represented with 172 stocks. The ''Securities Market'' has 163 stocks (from 157 companies) and the ''Alternative Market'' has 9 stocks (9 companies).

Categories of stocks

The stocks of the Securities Market are divided into three categories: * ''Main Market'' (126 stocks from 124 companies) * ''Surveillance'' (25 stocks from 22 companies) * ''Under Suspension'' (12 stocks from 11 companies) For a list of the companies see: '' List of companies listed on the Athens Exchange ''.

Composite Index

The Athens Exchange uses the symbol ''GD'' for the Composite Index. The Bloomberg code for this index is ''ASE''; the Reuters code is ''.ATG''. The Composite Index was launched on 31 December 1980 () and has 60 constituents.

Annual returns

The following table shows the annual development of the Athens Composite Index since 1987.

Management

Board of Directors oversees the activity of ATHEX. The Board consists of 13 members who are elected by the General Meeting of Shareholders for a 4-year term. The current Board was elected at the 20th general Meeting of Shareholders conducted on 31 May 2021. The chairman of the Board is George Handjinicolaou. Yianos Kontopoulos is the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

Notes

References

External links

Official website
*
Stock prices and daily price changes
on the official website * Hellenic Capital Market Commission: th
English language website
{{Greece topics 1876 establishments in Greece Finance in Greece Stock exchanges in Europe

Stock Exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for ...

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