After initially opening in the green, the Athex could not hold on to the gains for more than five minutes before spiralling down, following other European exchanges and after huge losses in Asia and on Wall Street overnight.

Greek stocks showed a loss of 3.9 percent to 959.32 points at 08H52 GMT. By mid-day trading stocks steadily gained ground and entered green territory by 12H30 GMT.

"I think it's a stabilising factor after a sharp fall seen the past few days. It's a technical bounce, in line with a tentative stabilisation seen in global equity markets," Platon Monokroussos, an analyst at Eurobank told AFP.

Greece meanwhile raised 812.5 million euros ($1.16 billion) in short-term loans on Tuesday, paying investors a slightly lower return of 4.85 percent in a sale of six-month Treasury bills.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011