The AthensStock Exchange is the stock exchange of Greece, based in the capital city of Athens. Founded in 1876, there are currently five markets operating in ATHEX: regulated securities market, regulated derivatives market, Alternative market, carbon market and OTC market. In the regulated securities market investors can trade in stocks, bonds, ETFs and other related securities. ATHEX has over 30 indices. The six main indices are: [|Composite Index], FTSE/Athex Large Cap, FTSE/Athex Mid Cap Index, FTSE/Athex Market Index, FTSE/ATHEX Global Traders Index Plus and FTSE/ATHEX Factor-Weighted Index. The Athens Composite index started trading in 1980, its High 6355.04 set on 17 September 1999. The Athens stock exchange was closed on 27 June 2015 because of the Greek government-debt crisis. 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.
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 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. After being closed due to the ongoing debt crisis since June 27, 2015, the stock market crashed when the exchange was reopened on 3 August. The overall index lost over 16% of its value with bank stocks losing the maximum allowed 30% on the day's trading. The Athens Stock Exchange is a member of the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges.
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.
Stock exchange
Companies listed on the exchange are regulated by the Hellenic Capital Market Commission. As of 7 April 2020 on the Athens Exchange 180 companies are represented with 184 stocks. The Securities Market has 174 stocks and the Alternative Market has 10 stocks.
Categories of stocks
The stocks of the Securities Market are divided into five categories:
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.
Year
Closing level
Change in index in points
Change in index in %
1987
272.47
1988
279.65
7.18
2.64
1989
459.43
179.78
64.29
1990
932.00
472.57
102.86
1991
809.71
−122.29
−13.12
1992
672.31
−137.40
−16.97
1993
958.66
286.35
42.59
1994
868.91
−89.75
−9.36
1995
914.15
45.24
5.21
1996
933.48
19.33
2.11
1997
1,479.63
546.15
58.51
1998
2,737.55
1,257.92
85.02
1999
5,535.09
2,797.54
102.19
2000
3,388.86
−2,146.23
−38.77
2001
2,591.56
−797.30
−23.53
2002
1,748.42
−843.14
−32.53
2003
2,263.58
515.16
29.46
2004
2,786.18
522.60
23.09
2005
3,663.90
877.72
31.50
2006
4,394.13
730.23
19.93
2007
5,178.83
784.70
17.86
2008
1,786.51
−3,392.32
−65.50
2009
2,196.16
409.65
22.93
2010
1,413.94
−782.22
−35.62
2011
680.42
−733.52
−51.88
2012
907.90
227.48
33.43
2013
1,162.68
254.78
28.06
2014
826.18
−336.50
−28.94
2015
631.35
−194.83
−23.58
2016
643.64
12.29
1.95
2017
802.37
158.73
24.66
2018
613.30
−189.07
−23.56
2019
916.67
303.37
49.47
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 14th Annual general Meeting of Shareholders conducted on 20 May 2015. The Chairman of the Board is George Handjinicolaou. Socrates Lazaridis is the CEO.
