Bar an unlikely collapse in its share price today, Baltimore Technologies is now certain to stage a dramatic return to the FTSE-100 index, just three months after the share was ignominiously ejected from the index following its collapse when the dot.com bubble burst in June.
While Baltimore shares did not continue their dramatic surge in yesterday's London trading - they closed down 6p on £8.95 sterling (€14.53) - the 28 per cent rise in the share price last week and the group's market capitalisation of £3.6 billion sterling is likely to be sufficient to ensure Baltimore's return to the FTSE.
The composition of the FTSE for the next three months is dictated by market capitalisation at the end of trading tonight. With its market value of £3.6 billion sterling, Baltimore is comfortably within the top 100 companies and this ensures automatic membership of the index.
Baltimore is likely to be joined in the rejigged FTSE by handheld computer firm, Psion, and Granada Media - the spin-off from Granada and South African technology group Dimension Data. Internet service provider Freeserve; cement group Blue Circle; Corus, the former British Steel; and brewers Scottish & Newcastle are likely to exit the FTSE-100 to the less prestigious FTSE-250 index.
Baltimore's March inclusion, June exclusion and subsequent September reinclusion in the FTSE-100 are an indication of the volatility of technology shares, which soared in the first half of the year on dot.com euphoria and then collapsed in midyear as the market took a more jaundiced view towards the sector. In the past two weeks, however, technology, media and telecom (TMT) shares have once again become investors' favourites - to the extent that Baltimore is now set to rejoin the FTSE-100 index, an elevation that would have seemed inconceivable just a week ago.
An indication of the volatility of Baltimore is shown by the progress of its share price this year. Shortly before inclusion in the FTSE-100 in March, the shares had reached a peak of £15 sterling. Within weeks, however, the sell-off of technology shares resulted in heavy losses and Baltimore reached a low of £3.65 in June as the share exited the index. The past week, however, has seen a dramatic recovery, with the shares jumping 28 per cent to £9.
Baltimore's likely return to the FTSE-100 is only a modest highlight of the Irish technology sector in the past week. The star performer has been Parthus, whose shares have now risen more than 60 per cent since it announced an agreement last week with ARM Holdings to license its mobile-location technology.
Yesterday, Parthus jumped more than 18 per cent to a new high of £4.05 sterling, an almost fivefold rise since they went public in May.
Another star yesterday was Trintech which was almost 20 per cent higher as the shares rose €6.18 on the Frankfurt Neuer Markt to a close of €38.40 (£48.76).
