Athens stock exchange plunges after opening

(Vatican Radio)  Greece’s stock market suffered heavy losses on Monday, after reopening for the first time in 5 weeks.

Listen to John Carr's report:

The Athens Stock Exchange had barely opened after a five-week closure this morning than it promptly plunged, as panicky investors unloaded stocks en masse in what’s already being called Black Monday.

If there were any faint hopes that the reopening of the Exchange would boost economic confidence in Greece, those hopes were soon dashed as the index plummeted by nearly 23 percentage points in a couple of hours.

There was a bit of a rally around lunchtime, as strong stocks such as Hellenic Telecom found some buyers, but at the close of trading today the Athens Stock Exchange index was down almost 16 percent from its last trading day at the end of June.

Greek bank stocks took the worst hits, all of them crashing into the limit-down wall, which is minus 30 percent.  That was a sobering reminder of the banks’ serious ill-health and five weeks of capital controls that clearly are going to continue.

The Greek stock market shock appeared to lend weight to the arguments of Greece’s creditors.  They’re locked in talks with Greek officials over the much-bruited reforms that are supposed to unlock bailout funds later this month.