Santa Arrives Early for the Stock market

FTSE 100 climbs 806 points in a year and November sees biggest gains. ADVFN highlights the stock market winners and losers for the last year.

(PRWEB) December 9, 2005 -- November 2005 saw the FTSE 100 rise 4.16 percent perhaps indicating that the Santa Effect, which has seen the index rise 17 out of the last 21 Decembers, has been pre-empted by investors.

Research by ADVFN, Europe’s leading stocks and shares website, has highlighted that since December 2004 the FTSE 100 has increased by 17.1% and the FTSE 250 has jumped 28.2%. November was the best performing period over the twelve-month study with the main index reaching its second-highest point of 5554.9 during trading on the 28th of the month. This was only surpassed on December 7th 2005 when the FTSE touched 5574.

October lived up to its crash-prone reputation with the FTSE 100 dropping 3%, making it the worst performer. The month proved extremely volatile with the index seeing both its biggest slump and biggest rise - the index decreased from 5249 to 5167.8 (-1.55%) on October 19th and increased from 5243.6 to 5317.3 on October 31st (1.41%). However the FTSE 100 hit its lowest point of 4765.4 during trading on the 12th of January 2005.

The year also saw some amazing returns for individual stocks. The top three gainers were QXL Ricardo, Metals Exploration and Ultrasis, which rose 1434%, 579% and 462% respectively. At the other end of the spectrum were Sanctuary Group, Readybuy and Highbury House Communications, which all saw their share prices drop between 90% and 95%. The biggest UK IPO was PartyGaming, which raised £906.7 million in June 2005. However it was Uranium Resources that saw the largest first-day trading rise; increasing 191.7% in February 2005.

“December is historically a well-performing month with a boost in retail sales and the general bonhomie of the season perhaps accounting for a buoyant stock market. However, as is often the case with trading maxims, people pre-empt them and the affect can occur earlier or even be traded away. With great November returns in 2005 it could be the case that Santa’s influence has hit the City early,” said Clem Chambers, CEO of ADVFN. “The stock market has had a great run this year with the FTSE 100 at its highest level since 2001 and the IPO market looking strong. Let’s hope 2006 carries on the trend.”

About ADVFN:
ADVFN (www.advfn.com) is Europe’s number one stocks and shares Web site. With full real-time coverage of the London Stock Exchange, the euronext-liffe, OFEX, NASDAQ, Amex and NYSE, including FTSE, Dow and S&P indices, ADVFN provides professional quality information to the person on the street.

ADVFN was established in the last quarter of 1999 and floated on AIM in March 2000. It now has over 500,000 registered users who generate in excess of 38 million page impressions a month.

We currently cover the following areas in the UK, France and America:

http://www.advfn.com

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