MARKETin: The January 2006 Edition Is Now Available - Main Innovations And The Performance During The Year Of The Italian Stock Market

The magazine is dedicated above all to summarising the main changes and the performance of the Italian stock market. The lion’s share is devoted to the numerous records achieved in 2005, covered in a series of articles. The most important record concerned the increase in trading volumes with a daily average on the equity market of 185,504 contracts for a value of 3.7 billion Euro (3.4 in 2000, the year of the boom). Another record was achieved by the Idem Market where on each trading day an average 101,057 contracts were traded on derivatives, for a turnover of 3.6 billion Euro. There was also a sharp growth as regards ETFs which, following the listing of the new funds, have now risen to 30: trading was up by 172% with respect to 2004.

Based on these figures, Borsa Italiana SpA has managed to overtake Deutsche Börse and slide into third position as regards the Old Continent, behind Euronext and the London Stock Exchange.

Much of this success is due to the growing visibility of the S&P/MIB index, which has become a major benchmark acknowledged at international level. As regards benchmarks, the official introduction of the so-called “total return” indices, disseminated by Borsa Italiana every day at the close of trading, will be very useful. These indices are calculated by “reinvesting” the dividends distributed by the companies to their shareholders and make it possible to avoid the distortions generated by the traditional indices which record falls to coincide with the payment of profits. By way of these calculation tools the task of the SGRs is made easier: the recent changes to the Consob rules for issuers provide for the obligation to calculate and use similar benchmarks for the proceeds recapitalisation funds, which are the majority.

Lastly the “flash market news” feature recalls the most significant events of the stock exchange year, including: 19 new listings on the Stock Exchange; capital increases and placement operations amounting to 18.9 billion; 23 takeover bids for a total of 19.8 billion and the success of the Trading Expo organised in October. The Italian Stock Market achieved a capitalisation of 677 billion, including 626 for the Blue Chips, 44 for Standard and STAR and 7 for Expandi.

Completing the edition is a series of summary data in the form of charts and graphs.

Click here to download the January 2006 edition (file pdf - 1415 KB)