Share Indices in March 08

The misery continued in March. I guess the rate of decline was slightly less severe than in Jan and Feb - but the UK FTSE SCS Index still fell 2.63% making it nearly 12% YTD. The FTSE Telecomms index fell more steeply - down 3.7% in Mar/16.5% YTD.

Interestingly, it looks as if European tech stocks have now caught the bug. Note that the FTSE Euro Tech Index fell a massive 12% in Mar/23% YTD and the FTSE Euro Telecomms Index was down 8% in mar/22.6% YTD.

Conversely Support Services has consistently performed best - down just 0.7% in Mar/5.6% YTD. That compares with a 3.3% fall in the FTSE 100 in Mar/11.8% YTD. Capita, Serco, Xchanging etc are in the Support Services Sector and are, as I have said to the point of boredom, the safest havens in the current storm. Indeed as I said yesterday, outsourcing can tend to do even better during periods of corporate cost cutting.