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In September the Riga Stock Exchange trading volume amounted to EUR 25.97 million: equity trading volume was EUR 17.41 million, whereas debt trading was EUR 8.56 million. Liepajas metalurgs with EUR 9.47 million turnover was the leader, followed by Latvijas kugnieciba with EUR 3 million and Grindeks with EUR 2.8 million. The top companies according to capitalisation were Latvijas Gaze with EUR 365.65 million, Ventspils nafta with EUR 213.48 million, NORD/LB Latvija with EUR 109.23 million, and Latvijas kugnieciba with EUR 108.36 million.
The main price winners of the month were Kaija (23.53%), Olainfarm (19.23%), Grindeks (14.29%), Ventspils nafta (10%), while Rigas Transporta flote shares lost 21.74%. Equity market capitalisation at the end of September stood at EUR 948 million. Dow Jones Riga Stock Exchange index lost a mere 0.66% since the end of August. The increase since the beginning of the year is still very impressive: 42.32%. Total debt market value at the end of September was EUR 668.14 million.
The auction of Latvijas kugnieiciba 5.75% state-owned shares was held on September 15. 92.5% of the offered shares were sold; the calculated price was LVL 0.34. The RSE has summarised its members' trading activity for the 9-month period: Unibanka is the most active trading member, generating 20.58% of total turnover. Latvijas Krajbanka and Hansabanka with 28.90% and 27.21% respectively were the most active members in terms of equity trading, whereas Hipoteku banka with 34.66% and Parekss Banka with 24.66% were the leaders in debt trading.
Starting with September 29, 2003, the Riga Stock Exchange and the Latvian Central Depository have moved to the new office located at Valnu iela 1, Riga, LV-1050.
HEX Tallinn
Turnover of Tallinn Stock Exchange reached EUR 63.05 million in September 2003 (compared to EUR 18.9 million in August), while TALSE index decreased by 2.8%.
On September 4, TALSE closed at 306 - the highest level since November 1997.
Investor interest was enlivened by the European Union accession referendum, held on September 14. Hansapank's stock gained EEK 1.43 billion in market capitalization in a single day, the day after Estonians said "yes" to the European Union.
The investors' activity, measured in number of trades, was over two times higher in September than in August. The total number of trades was 2,980 in September, which is the highest level since January 2002.
Tallinn Stock Exchange and Financial Supervisory Authority signed cooperation agreement in September, the main goal of which is to specify the role of both institutions in the securities' market supervision.
The total number of people who have joined the 2nd pillar of the pension system exceeded 300,000 in September and reached 302,444 by the end of the month.
According to the Estonian Statistical Office the GDP increased by 3.5% in Q2 2003 y-o-y basis. Preliminary calculations show that in Q2 2003, the gross domestic product (GDP) at current prices was EUR 1.97 billion.
Vilnius
It would be very unfavourable to compare the exceptional trading volumes in September of the previous year (EUR 105 million total and EUR 81.4 million equity) with the trading volumes last September.
However, both total volume of securities trading (EUR 54 million) and share trading (EUR 19 million) were among the highest this year. Similarly to the last few months, in September trading in securities on the central market (EUR 14 million) was stable ñthere was only one session that recorded the trading volume under EUR 290 thousand, and only three had it under EUR 434 thousand. The investors were interested in almost all companies on the Exchange trading lists ñ the turnover of 13 company shares climbed over the threshold of EUR 290 thousand, while the Exchange indices during the first decade in September reached the highest values of the 52 weeks.
Share trading during the third quarter increased by one quarter and totalled EUR 61 million; turnover of Government Securities was by 35%, and total turnover by 19% (EUR 143 million lower than during the second quarter of the year.
During the nine months of the year the trading volume of securities was analogous to that of the same period last year; it amounted to EUR 434 million, where share trading accounted for 30%.
