(Vienna) Starting today, 15 February 2006, Wiener Börse AG will be publishing the Southeast Europe Traded Index (SETX), which contains the 15 largest companies listed on the stock exchanges of Bucharest, Ljubljana, Zagreb and Sofia. SETX is a capitalization-weighted price index and is calculated and published by Wiener Börse in real time in EUR and USD. The starting value of the SETX was defined at 1000 points on 3 January 2005. In the previous year, the Southeast Europe Index rose by 31.1% and in the first few weeks of the year already by 16.9%.
"Our intention in developing the SETX was to stress the significance of Southeast Europe’s capital markets for Wiener Börse," said Mr. Michael Buhl, Member of the Management Board of Wiener Börse AG. The capital markets of Southeast Europe have an enormous potential according to Mr. Buhl. Market capitalization on the exchanges in Romania, Slovenia, Croatia and Bulgaria has tripled in the past few years from some EUR 12bn to around EUR 36bn.
"With the SETX, Wiener Börse has succeeded in making the future EU member states tradable according to the well-proven method of the CECE indices, which enjoy worldwide renown today as Eastern Europe benchmark indices," said Mr. Michael Spiss, Member of the Management Board of Raiffeisen Centrobank (RCB). The RCB products on the SETX – leverage certificates and investment certificates – are already on the market.
Internationally recognized index expertise of Wiener Börse
Over 80% of all worldwide structured products with a relation to Eastern Europe are based on the indices of Wiener Börse. The indices are the ideal underlying for issuing structured products such as warrants, certificates and exchange-traded funds. The composition of the indices is reviewed regularly and adjusted if needed. "All of our 28 indices meet the same high quality standards: They are transparently designed and include only the internationally recognized blue chips of the respective countries thus making the indices representative," said Mr. Buhl of Wiener Börse.
Today, the index family of Wiener Börse is made up of the following indices:
- The ATX group with the ATX, which has been calculated since January 1991, the ATXPrime since 2002 and the ATXfive since 2004.
- The CECE indices have been calculated since July 1996 and cover the markets of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the entire region, and as of today, also Southeast Europe with the SETX.
- The NTX (launched in 2005) covers the CECE markets and the Austrian market.
- The RTX and the RDX cover the Russian stock market and have been calculated since October 1997.
- The ROTX has been calculated since March 2005 and comprises the most important stocks listed on the Romanian market.
- Since December 2005, the CTX has been traded on Wiener Börse with the A shares of the Shanghai Stock Exchange.