THE ALL-share index hit a 20-month low yesterday, closing 2.92 per cent down at 179.4 points. It was the lowest the index has seen since July 1999.
The FTSE/CySE top 20 dropped a further 2.58 per cent to 759.6 points while volume stood at £6.3 million as investors continued to dump shares with little left to lose.
Hardest hit in the blue chip stakes were the three most active of the day, Bank of Cyprus (BoC), Laiki Bank and GlobalSoft (GLC), which clocked up over £2 million of the total volume.
Over one million pounds worth of BoC shares were traded, with the stock ending at £2.56, down seven cents. Laiki fell four cents to £2.08 and GLC to £3.4, a drop of five cents.
Sectoral losses were heavy in manufacturing and tourism, which plunged 5.4 and 6.3 per cent respectively, but most sectors were down between two and four per cent. Only the trading sector managed to avoid the slaughter, with minimal losses of 0.84 per cent.
“Investors do not see any reason to buy into a falling market with no immediate prospects of a rebound,” said one broker.
Finance Minister Takis Klerides yesterday sought to avoid questions on the state of the market after yesterday’s House Finance Committee meeting.
Asked what the government position was on the decline of the market, Klerides said: “Next question please.”
He added that he was not obliged to follow the tactics of his Greek counterpart in commenting on the market.
Asked whether he thought opposition parties were deliberately keeping he market down as a pre-election tactic, the Minister said: “We would need proof to substantiate such an allegation but each individual can come to his own conclusions by seeing how the index is moving.”
Klerides also said if the government’s proposal to introduce the £100 million stabilisation fund for the market had received parliamentary support the situation would not be so bad.
Finance Committee chairman and DIKO deputy Markos Kyprianou, who put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the government, said the fund would only have provided a short-term solution.
“It was a solution that would perhaps push the market up and drag others into the current dangers,” he said. “It’s like someone having cancer and you give them anaesthetic instead of giving then an operation. It doesn’t hurt at the time, but the problem gets worse.”
He said the government has been very slow in facing the market’s basic problems and that 99 per cent of all initiatives to revive the market had come from the political parties.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
