Standard & Poor's Corp

ABN Amro has launched a new range of stock market indices, designed to outperform traditional benchmarks with the aid of market timing. The new indices, which will be independently calculated by Standard & Poor's, will be called the ABN Amro Alpha range.

The indices are based on the observation that investors tend to reduce risk in the approach to the end of the month or to public holidays such as Christmas. ABN Amro believes this is because traders usually have to report profits and losses at the end of these periods. They accordingly wish to "lock in" their gains.

Goldman Sachs has downgraded the Hong Kong banking sector amid the atypical pneumonia crisis, triggering a sell-off among banking shares.

......Mr Ramos said in a report. "While dividend yields remain attractive, we see less earnings resilience in 2003 as pressures mount."......

.....Standard & Poor's also issued a report yesterday warning: "Sars is......

Banking shares came under pressure after the reports, with Bank of China (HK) falling 1.86 per cent to HK$7.90 after Goldman downgraded the stock to "in-line" from "outperform".