Lithuania to adopt common Nordic Baltic cash trading platform in May

20.05.2005 VLN

“The common trading system will provide the members of OMX exchanges and investors easy access to the Lithuanian as well as other Baltic and Nordic securities markets and enhance liquidity as more members will be able to trade the Lithuanian securities”, said the President of OMX Exchanges’ Baltic Markets, Johan Rudén. He added that the trading hours of the Baltic markets will be harmonized and all OMX stock exchanges will work under harmonized trading rules. 

“The implementation of the project opens new possibilities for the VSE members to broaden their operations in Nordic Baltic region. For listed companies it will be easier to attract additional foreign capital and for all Lithuanian investors it will be easier to invest in other markets” – said the President of VSE Dalia Jasulaityte.

Benefits of a common Nordic Baltic market are among others:
– Harmonized trading hours for the Baltic stock exchanges (10:00 – 14:00 EET).
– Harmonized trading day structure at OMX Exchanges (opening call, continuous trading, closing call).
– Common trading platform and trading rules, the NOREX Member Rules at eight Nordic and Baltic exchanges, including the OMX Exchanges and its NOREX alliance partners.
– Joint Baltic market with a common Baltic securities list, harmonized listing rules and a cross-border delivery-versus-payment link.
– Joint Baltic market dataweb for statistics on the Internet.

Currently the SAXESS trading system is used by the OMX Exchanges in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Latvia and Estonia as well as the exchanges in Iceland and Norway. OMX implemented this system in Tallinn, Riga and Helsinki in the fall of 2004. Lithuania’s integration into the common Nordic Baltic securities market was started by OMX after the privatization of VSE and part of the Central Securities Depository of Lithuania in May 2004.

As of launch of the new trading system SAXESS™, the VSE will stop calculating its real-time price index LITIN-10. From the launch of the new system, VILSE index will replace LITIN-10 and will become a real-time index. A capitalization weighted index VILSE is constructed for all listed shares on the VSE and is currently calculated after the end of the VSE trading session.

Through OMX Exchanges OMX offers access to about 80 percent of the Nordic and Baltic securities markets. The total value of the stock market operated by OMX reached over EUR 415 billion last year. In year 2004, OMX Exchanges revenues overstepped SEK 1735 m (EUR 186 m). 310 employees worked at OMX Exchanges at the end of last year. 

For more information please contact:
Diana Sokolova, Marketing and Communications Manager
OMX Exchanges/ Vilnius Stock Exchange +370 5 272 13 71

About OMX Exchanges | OMX is a leading partner for more efficient securities transactions. OMX consists of two divisions: OMX Technology and OMX Exchanges. Through the OMX Exchanges division, OMX owns and operates the equity and derivatives exchanges in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius as well as the central securities depositories in Estonia and Latvia. Through OMX Exchanges, OMX offers access to approximately 80 percent of the Nordic and Baltic Securities market. For more information, please visit www.omxgroup.com.


NOREX
NOREX is an alliance of the eight stock exchanges of the Nordic countries. The securities are traded on the same platform under harmonized rules. The NOREX alliance is made up of the exchanges in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Oslo and Iceland.

SAXESS™ trading platform
SAXESS is a common electronic trading system, which was developed by OMX Technology, used by exchanges of OMX Exchanges group and other exchanges of NOREX alliance. SAXESS is a modern high-performance trading system that supports multiple exchanges running concurrently in multiple currencies. The system supports all common trading models, order types and instrument types.

NOREX Member Rules
The NOREX Member Rules are a result of the harmonization of the rules in force on the NOREX exchanges and they contain member terms and rules for trading in equities and bonds. The NOREX Member Rules are available at www.norex.com.

Opening and closing calls
A call is a type of electronic auction attended by buyers and sellers of shares. During the call, sellers and buyers can submit, cancel and modify orders. Among other benefits, the call procedure facilitates efficient pricing and reduces the risk of price fluctuations. During the final part of the opening call, buyers and sellers can see the current equilibrium price of a share and accumulated bid and ask volumes at best five prices.

The Joint Baltic Market
The Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius stock exchanges form a joint Baltic market to simplify access and minimize investment barriers when operating on Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian markets. The Joint Baltic Market has a common list of Baltic securities, a common index of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian markets and harmonized listing, trading, disclosure rules and joint Baltic market dataweb for statistics on the Internet. A cross-border DVP link connects Baltic depositories.

BALTIX
The BALTIX Index is a capitalization-weighted chain-linked total return index. The index is calculated daily using the most recent official closing prices of all shares listed on the Main Lists of the Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius stock exchanges and comparing the compound market capitalization plus dividends paid to the corresponding data of the previous trading day. The index constituents are subject to quarterly weight limits of 10 percent of the compound market capitalization. The index base value was set at 100.00 points on January 1, 2000. The index is calculated using prices in Euro.

VILSE index
The VILSE Stock Index is capitalization-weighted chain-linked total return indexes. VILSE is calculated on a daily basis using the most recent closing prices of all shares listed on the Vilnius Stock Exchange’s Official and Current Lists. No weight limits are applied to the index constituents. The index calculation methodology of the VILSE index is harmonized with Estonian (TALSE) and Latvian (RIGSE) total return index methodology. The index base values were set at 100.00 points on January 1, 2000.