Irish Stock Exchange Publishes Its First Half Review

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

18 August 2008

The Irish Stock Exchange has this week published its first half review, which has reported a substantial increase in the number of daily transactions on the Irish equity market in the first half of 2008, with a 62% increase in volumes over the first half of 2007.

Reflecting the fall in equity valuations, the value of stocks traded in the first half of 2008 was EUR68.7bn compared to EUR101.7bn in the same period in 2007.

Average daily value of trading were EUR554m, a 32% fall on the first half of 2007.

Commenting on the first half 2008 performance, Brian Healy, Director of Traded Markets, Development, Operations said:

“The ISE’s ability to strongly grow the volume of transactions that domestic and international investors execute on our markets emphasises the ISE’s attractiveness as a trading venue and its position as the dominant centre of liquidity for Irish equities.

“This growth also needs to be seen in the context of the extremely difficult market conditions globally and the ever increasing competitiveness of equity trading in Europe. We are bringing new equity and Government bond traders to the ISE and we are continuing to harness new sources of order flow for the issuers of Irish equities," he added.

Turnover in the Irish Government bond market remained especially healthy in the first half of 2008, with the value of bonds traded increasing 78% to EUR31bn compared to EUR17.5bn in the first half of 2007.

The first half of the current year saw the successful issuance of the EUR7bn Treasury Bond 2019 by the National Treasury Management Agency.

Commenting on the continuing uncertainty in global financial markets, Gerard Scully, Director of International Primary Markets said:

“The difficulties in the structured credit markets have resulted in a fall in the number of new debt listings in the second quarter of 2008, however, this has been counterbalanced to some extent by the listing of new Euro commercial paper programmes, covered debt programmes and straight debt programmes. In addition, the first half of 2008 saw a steady flow of new funds to the ISE - a total of 213 new funds and sub-funds listed in the first half of 2008.”

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