The rise of Vilnius stock index this year “is not bad” in comparison with other global indexes and Lithuania is one of the countries where indexes showed the largest annual gain, Tadas Povilauskas of Finasta investment bank has said. Looking at the Baltic countries, Vilnius stock exchange lags behind Tallinn, which, according to non-final data, has made it into the top ten of global indexes that achieved the largest growths this year.
The OMX Vilnius index in 2012 rose by 18.84 percent, to 355.08 points, and the market capitalization shrank by 4.71 percent, to reach 2.992 billion euros at the end of December. The OMX Tallinn advanced by 38.22 percent, to 734.2 points, and the OMX Riga went up by 6.67 percent, to 395.91 points.
“The returns are in fact very good if compared with what is going on in the world. Tallinn has actually shown one of the largest gains not just among the European indexes but probably among global indexes as well,” Marius Ignotas, the head of equity sales Lithuania at Swedbank, told BNS.
Povilauskas believes that the OMX Vilnius index might actually increase by 10 percent next year.
“We expect next year to be positive – cautiously positive, and the change in the stock index to be positive. Foreign investors might probably start paying more attention to the Baltic countries once again and the local investors might probably increase their risk appetite and direct somewhat more money to the markets. A 10-percent increase [in the OMX Vilnius index] would be very likely unless there are stronger shocks on the global stock markets,” Povilauskas projected.
