Baltic equity rally continues, but trade activity low

Most Baltic blue chip stocks gained in value over the last week amid solid operation indicators and good news on the world's stock market. The "yes" vote in Ireland last weekend could provide an additional boost for the Baltic stocks.

The Baltic Index of 15 most capitalized and liquid Baltic List shares rose 1.2 percent over the week to 162.6 points.

Of the 15 stocks only two did not gain in value in euro terms whereas great gains by Eesti Telekom and Hansapank pushed up the list's capitalization by 4.4 percent to 2.83 billion euros.

The Baltic List's weekly turnover last week fell nearly twofold over the previous week to 3 million euros. Traditionally, 89 percent of that turnover was contributed by Estonian stocks with the rest of the trade divided equally by Latvian and Lithuanian stocks.

Trade on the Tallinn Stock Exchange was boosted by the economic results of Eesti Telekom and Norma last week. The TALSE index surged 9.98 points or 5.71 percent to 184.82 points over the week.

Trigon Markets broker Kaur Elviste said the tone on the market was set by Eesti Telekom's better than expected results combined with world market sentiments.

Eesti Telekom was the biggest gainer, soaring 8.28 percent to 79.80 kroons (5.10 euros) as the group posted a quite optimistic nine-month net profit of 797 million kroons.

Across the Baltics, Latvijas Kugnieciba shipping company fell 6.25 percent last week to 0.3 lats (0.5 euros). Rumors about the imminent resale of the shipping company's controlling stake that pushed up the stock's price a week earlier had subsided somewhat during the past week.

But scandalous disagreements between the present and former management of savingsbank Latvijas Krajbanka have made public data about serious irregularities in the shipping company's privatization process.

In the first half of the week the market was sluggish, but on the last trading day the flow of market-moving news fuelled interest. The secondary-listed marine transport company Klaipedos Transporto Laivynas emerged as the leader in terms of the central market turnover.