During the November trading month to 02 December, the  Redux Global ICT 100 Index (R-100) climbed by 7.08% to reach 1085.77. This tops the previous high, recorded on 30 September, 2005, of 1050.60 and the 28 October figure of 1013.92. The figure for November trading also sees the R-100 up 5.7% on the year 2005 so far and 7.2% on one calendar year ago.

In November, Asia-Pacific shares climbed 10.5%; North America was up 8.99%; Europe managed to grow by 2.04%. Both the Asian and American components of the Index registered record highs for the 18-month lifespan of the R-100.

Europe might have followed suit with the other regions, but for the impact of an overwhelming number of gainers being offset by a few heavyweight decliners, most notably Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone.

In Asia, Japanese carriers DoCoMo, KDDI and NTT were down or flat but other companies were up, led by HK-traded Chinese stocks. Korean stocks showed 2005 highs.

In North America, upward trending appeared infectious over the month. Leading the way were technology behemoths HP, IBM, Motorola and Microsoft. backed by services companies Accenture, Computer Associates and EDS. Internet players Google, Yahoo!, Amazon and eBay all surged ahead, while carrier fortunes were mixed. In truth, however,you need to work hard to find a significant stock in negative territory.

By comparison, the general market indices for the Asian and North American regions showed the Nikkei up 15% in the same period, the Hang Seng up 6.9%, the Dow up 4.5% and the NASDAQ up 6.9%. With the singular exception of Japan, these numbers suggest that the R-100 stocks are operating at a solid ‘outperform’ at present. Or, at the very least, they are leading these indicators higher in the way one came to know just five years ago.

Another good month might set the base for a very 'Happy New Year' indeed. We’ll need to wait until after the markets close on 30 December to find out.
Jim Chalmers