STOCKS slumped to a second successive four-year low yesterday, with market heavyweight Bank of Cyprus falling as its share price was adjusted after a dividend to shareholders.
The benchmark index fell 2.05 points, or two per cent, to 96.81, levels not visited since the market traded with considerably fewer companies in 1998.
Part of the climbdown was due to Bank of Cyprus stock trading ex-dividend, taking into account an eight-cent payout to shareholders, analysts said. The stock was trading yesterday at £1.60, seven cents below Friday’s close.
The FTSE/CySE index of 20 top stocks lost 2.42 per cent to end at a historical low of 412.55 points.
Banking shares lost 2.38 per cent on the Bank of Cyprus adjustment. Peers Laiki ended unchanged at £1.26 and Hellenic nudged up a cent to 78.
Sentiment has been sour since the market started a downward spiral from an all-time high of 881 points reached in November 1999, caused in part by a raft of new issues.
“Trust needs to be brought back to the market and that can only be gradual by investors making their decisions based on company fundamentals and their prospects,” a government source told Reuters.
Investor groups say that thousands of people are still heavily in debt for investing on the bourse with borrowed funds before the bubble burst. Many investors put money on the market or in private placements on the expectation of a very quick profit.
Now, few are willing to take the risk, according to a poll prepared by Laiki Bank which showed only one per cent of Cypriots are prepared to invest excess cash on the bourse, compared to 23 per cent in 1999.
During yesterday’s session, declining stocks outpaced advancing ones 68 to 47 with 17 unchanged, and 47 issues hit new year lows. Turnover fell to £2.04 million on a volume of 9.9 million shares. (R)
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.
