This year the Danish equity market has performed significantly better than the foreign markets in terms of price development. At noon today, the KFX Index was at 314.1, corresponding to a rise of 23 per cent since the beginning of 2000, while the Swedish OMX has fallen by 10.5 per cent, the German DAX by 5.8 per cent, FTSE100 by 8.7 per cent and Nikkei225 by 26.6 per cent. (Source: SIX Trader).
Six Danish companies went public in 2000 and were placed on the KVX Growth Market, which was launched in September as a special list on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. The tough market conditions, primarily on the major international markets, meant that a number of such growth companies have had to cancel and/or postpone a planned stock exchange listing.
Moreover, Novozymes joined the CSE market when it was demerged from Novo Nordisk. The new companies raised DKK 4.8 billion, partly through the issue of new shares and partly through the sale of existing shares.
Also Nordea (the former Nordic Baltic Holding) joined as a new company as a result of Nordic Baltic Holding's acquisition of Unibank. Nordea is a foreign company as it is registered in Sweden.
Proceeds from issues in already listed companies amounted to DKK 47 billion, a rise of 170 per cent on 1999. Most of the proceeds, DKK 30.1 billion, came from Danske Bank's acquisition of Real Danmark.
Bond trading amounted to DKK 5,598 billion in market value. The value of average daily trading totalled DKK 22 billion, a fall of 20 per cent compared with 1999.
President and CEO Hans-Ole Jochumsen said: "We are very pleased with the development in the Danish equity market, especially when we look at the development in the international markets. We hope that the continuously improving conditions in the market place will mean that we can maintain our strong position in the coming year.
The Exchange will continue its endeavours to improve the market place conditions and thus support the positive development.
In October, the bonds were successfully transferred to the SAXESS trading system. Both shares and bonds listed on the exchanges in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Reykjavik are now traded in the common NOREX platform. Also, we have just completed the transfer of trading in and settlement of derivatives to the Swedish CLICK and SECUR systems. We expect the new set-up to attract renewed interest in the Danish derivatives market in the coming years, not least because the Danish derivative products will be available to international brokers."
