Share prices keep tumbling

1999-11-18

Share prices continued to tumble on the Baltic bourses last week,
with Latvia's posting the sharpest falls. Last week, Riga Stock
Exchange's both DJRSE and RICI indexes fell and daily turnover
averaged below $50,000 once more. The main reason for the RICI's
nearly 4 percent drop was the 25 percent plunge in Rezeknes PKK milk
cannery's share price, an event that may have also helped to drag
down the RSE's bedrock share, Unibanka, which is one of the dairy's
leading creditors.

In Estonia, the TALSE picked up during the week following several
days of stagnation but ended the week down 0.9 percent, contrary to
market leaders Hansapank and Norma, which ended on the upturn.
Turnover was also up a little from the previous week.

On the Lithuanian bourse the share price of Vilniaus Bankas shot up
15 percent, but Ukio Bankas fell 14.5 percent. As the shares of these
two banks are on different lists, the bourse's indexes varied widely.
Both of them are included on the LITIN-10, which ended down 0.40
percent. But the official list LITIN index, which includes Vilniaus
Bankas, climbed up 5.6 percent.

Most international bourses posted gains this past week, with Moscow's
RTSI recording a jump of 11.75 percent.