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Bel 20 Index ends the year 12.4% up

The Bel 20 Index of leading shares on the Brussels stock exchange has ended the 12.4% up on its close on 31 December 2013. The part state-owned postal services company Bpost has seen the value of its shares rise by 50% over the past 12 months.
A.Nielsen photography

The part state-owned telecoms company Belgacom was the second biggest climber, followed by the retailer Delhaize. It wasn’t all good news though as share in the automobile services group D'Ieteren ended the year almost 20% down on last year’s close.

2014 will be remembered as the year in which the Bel topped 3,000 points for the first time since the start of the economic crisis in 2008. This happened for the first time in February. However, in October the Bel 20 fell once again to under 3,000 points, dipping as low as 2,809.31 on 16 October.

The index soon recovered though reaching a high of 3,335.79 points on 8 December.

Although good, the year on year rise of 12.4% over the past 12 months is less in the past two years that saw the Bel 20 index rise by 18%. The stars of the show in 2012 and 2013 were the banking and financial services group KBC.

However, at + 12.7% the rise in the value of KBC’s shares this year was only just above to average for the Bel 20 as a whole.
 

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