Amsterdam One Of The World's 10 Biggest Markets

1995 saw the Amsterdam Exchanges NV climb into the top-ten list of the world's largest stock markets. This improvement was officially revealed with the release of the market value figures for shares published annually by the World Federation of Bourses (FIBV). The last time Amsterdam was in the top ten was in 1990. Thereafter it dropped to fifteenth position in 1993, before climbing once more to twelth in 1994. Following a 27.7% rise in market value during 1995 (compared with the world average of 7.5%) Amsterdam overtook Taiwan whose market value dropped by 24.3%. In real terms, Amsterdam recorded end year equity market capitalisation of US$ 287 billion (NLG 440 billion).

The 27.7% rise in value was partly due to a relatively strong increase in international price levels (16% in the CBS index). The large volume of new issues and secondary placements of NLG 17.6% billion (circa 4% of total equity market value) was also striking. About 8% of the rise in market value is due to the strength of the guilder relative to the dollar.

At end 1995 the order of the top 15 markets, in billions of US$, was as follows:

 1  (1)        New York         5,655
 2  (2)        Japan            3,545
 3  (3)        London           1,347
 4  (4)        Nasdaq           1,160
 5  (5)        Germany            577
 6  (6)        Paris              500
 7  (8)        Switzerland        398
 8  (7)        Canada             366
 9  (9)        Hong Kong          304
10 (12)        Amsterdam          287
11 (11)        Johannesburg       277
12 (13)        Australia          245
13 (14)        Kuala Lumpur       214
14 (15)        Italy              205
15 (21)        Madrid             190

For more information please contact: Thom Hoedemakers, Director of Communications, Amsterdam Exchanges NV, Tel: +31 20 523 4014 - Paddy Manning, St James Corporate Communications, Tel: +44 171 436 4101

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