A historic milestone for the Austrian capital market was achieved when the ATX sailed past the 2,000-point mark. A bundle of positive factors such as increasing corporate earnings, investments by Austrian issuers in the new member states, lower corporation taxes and state-subsidized retirement products have contributed to an attractive investment environment. The impressive performance of the leading index of Wiener Börse is accompanied by increasing trading volumes (+ 115% compared to 2003) and a market capitalisation of around EUR 53 billion (+ 87% compared to 2001). Wiener Börse's goal is to raise market capitalisation to EUR 75 billion by 2007.
Similarly to Vienna Stock Exchange, Budapest Stock Exchange achieved outstanding results in the last six months. It has closed the first half of 2004 with turnover worth EUR 6 billion, and made a profit of EUR 2.5 million, significantly surpassing the performance of the former year as well as the estimates calculated for the first half of 2004. The growth is also shown by equity market capitalization which reached EUR 17 billion. Besides operational efficiency, the encouraging result was possible due to high trading volume and dividends received from Central Clearing House and Depository Ltd (KELER). In case trading volume remains the similar level to the first six months (around 39 million EUR/day) for the rest of the year, even an additional EUR 0.6 million profit could be achieved.
Warsaw Stock Exchange matches the Vienna – Budapest "couple" in terms of success. From the very beginning, the WSE listing rules and trading practices, as well as its disclosure requirements, have followed international standards. The Exchange started operations with equity trading. Treasury bonds were first introduced to trading in 1992. In 1998, WSE futures market was launched, allowing the Warsaw Stock Exchange to offer both cash and derivative products under one roof. Today the WSE product offer includes: equities, bonds, investment certificates, index, stock and currency futures, as well as index options. The Warsaw Stock Exchange is one of the Europe’s most active markets in terms of trading in index futures (5th position) and the largest market among the 10 new EU member countries (in terms of market capitalisation and the number of listed companies). Today, the Exchange lists 212 companies, including a foreign one. Domestic companies' market capitalisation on equity market exceeds EUR 35 billion. The turnover on the WSE equity market in the first half of 2004 amounted to EUR 5.3 billion, 110 % higher compared to the same period of 2003.
Ongoing projects of the Exchanges help to follow the successful path towards reaching strategic goals.
In Vienna, trading links to other exchanges have been very successful and have boosted market liquidity. UBS Limited (London) was the seventh new exchange member to join this year. Wiener Börse's excellent long-term performance was discovered a while ago by international market participants. An increasing number of investors would like to participate in the opportunities, that our market has for offering, said Stefan Zapotocky, Member of the Management Board of Wiener Börse AG. Together with national and international banks as well as domestic issuers, numerous road shows were held in the most important financial centers this year. On account of the enormous interest shown by institutional investors further road shows are planned in Edinburgh, New York and Zurich for 2004. The groundwork for the success was laid by Wiener Börse AG's orientation on the market. The positive feedback received from all stakeholders to the measures taken to revive the capital market in the past few years confirms the intention of Wiener Börse to consistently pursue its current strategy.
Common goal of the Exchanges is to facilitate consistent and efficient measures to strengthen and expand the regional capital market.
At BSE as well, steps were taken forward such as the integration of the Commodity Exchange in which case on most of the key issues were decided. The introduction of the new index, the BUMIX, which will be traded from 1st September to reflect the performance of listed shares not only with high, but medium and small capitalisation since June 1, 2004 is also forward looking. The dynamic activity of BSE can be realised due to the Club of Quotables which resulted Freesoft to be listed in September. Discussions with new potential issuers between club members are in progress. One of our most important projects is to build out a vertical value chain on the capital market. To realize this goal the integration with KELER is essential, which is also an ongoing project.
It is obvious, that the Exchange has to fulfil an important role in the Hungarian economy: widening the capital market creating transparency, increased liquidity and easy access for investors.
The Warsaw Exchange actively participated in the preparation of the Agenda Warsaw City 2010 project, a strategy for the development of the Polish capital market until 2010 drawn up by the Ministry of Finance. The Agenda sets out actions to be taken towards the strengthening of the capital market and the role of the Exchange in the fast-growing Polish economy and on the international scene. One of the Agenda's aims is to increase the market capitalisation to 40% of the country's GDP by 2010. In line with the agenda, the privatisation of the Exchange itself is already under preparation and according to the Ministry of the Treasury may take place in 2005. During this process several options for a strategic alliance for the WSE will be also considered.
