During December the main price gainers were Rîgas KB with 13.04%, Latvijas balzams with 10.26% and Ditton with 10%. The price losers of the month were Grindeks with 16.67%, Latvijas kuìniecîba with 16% and Olainfarm with 10% (all relative to November).
The past year has been a success for the Riga Stock Exchange in equity trading, the volume increasing by 2.64% in euro terms. The increase was owing to the successful Latvijas kuìniecîba public cash auction.
Equity market capitalisation at the end of December stood at EUR 685.8 million (a 3.13% decrease since November). Total debt market value was EUR 497.74 million. Dow Jones Riga Stock Exchange index has dropped by 1.52% since the end of November, whereas the loss since beginning of the year is 19.64%. It should be noted that at the same time the other RSE index RICI (equal-lat weighted) has gained 27.4% in value during the year.
According to Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, the CPI in 2002 was as low as 1.4%, and is expected to be between 2.5% and 3% in 2003.
Tallinn
Estonian market finished the year as one of the best performing countries world-wide. TALSE index reached its 4-year historical high in December and ended the year at 212.47 pts, gaining annually 46.85%. In comparison, MSCI Eastern Europe index grew 9.32% during the same period. Thus the Estonian securities market was among the best performers in the region in 2002.
The total turnover of the Estonian securities market grew twofold, while the turnover of the stock exchange was stable to higher compared to the previous year Π267 Mio euros. The increased number of "buy-and-hold" institutional investors and decrease in retail direct investors were behind the drop in number of trades made on the stock exchange. Turnover velocity was 12% compared to 16% for same period in 2001.
Retail investors' increased tendency to invest via professional fund managers (annual inflow as well as number of investors increased 2 times compared to previous year) and emergence of local pension funds indicated the further institutionalisation of the market.
The number of persons who had joined the new pension pillar in its first year was 209,606, which exceeds the initial forecasts more than twice. As at the end of the year, the total volume of funded pension funds stood at EUR 11 Mio, of which the mandatory payments by the funds themselves accounted for EUR 6 Mio.
The launch of HEX trading environment in February 2002 has given further boost to the internationalisation of the market as foreign investors accounted for 81% of the listed securities™ owners, compared to 78% the year before.
Vilnius
The capitalisation of Unlisted Securities grew during the month, while that of the listed securities went down slightly causing the overall Stock Exchange capitalisation to stand unchanged at EUR 3.7 billion. Share indices LITIN and LITIN-G fell by about 3%, while the index of most actively traded top ten companies LITIN-10 grew by 7%.
The close of the year and preliminary financial results of the companies induced investors to make adequate changes in their investment portfolios and engage in a more active trading on the Stock Exchange. The number of securities traded during December was almost twice as high as in November and nearly one thousand more transactions were concluded. For that reason the overall Stock Exchange turnover in December reached EUR 101 million (in September it was EUR 104.5 million). Comparison of the last two months of 2002 shows that the share turnover grew most notably, more than 5 times, comprising 24.6% of the overall turnover and amounting to EUR 24.9 million. Just like throughout the year, shares were actively traded on the central market (EUR 3.8 million), but in December turnover of shares in other transactions also grew to reach EUR 21 million (in November it was EUR 1.4 million).
The total quarterly turnover and the share turnover were second biggest throughout the year (following the 3rd quarter) and stood at EUR 166 million and EUR 36.5 million, respectively. The quarterly turnover of debt securities amounted to EUR 130 million and was the highest in 2002.
For the second time in the history of the Stock Exchange the annual securities turnover exceeded LTL 2 billion (EUR 579.2 million) reaching EUR 586.2 million, of which 32% were attributed to share turnover.
