ANALYSIS OF THE ATTRACTIVENESS AND COMPETITIVENESS OF THE SECURITIES MARKET IN LITHUANIA

The importance of attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian stock market has significantly increased in the recent years due to its influence on the capital market as well as on its participants and the economy of the whole country. This article aims to evaluate the attractiveness and competitiveness of Lithuania’s securities market by using a quantitative analysis. It has aimed to define the statistically significant relationship between market attractiveness and competitiveness and the number of listed companies, cross listing, liquidity and trade volumes. The quantitative analysis has provided arguments to conclude that securities market in Lithuania currently is not attractive either from the point of capital supply or from the point of capital demand. In addition, the securities market in Lithuania lacks competitiveness among other markets.


Introduction
Due to the globalization, the circumstances to invest or raise capital in any securities market in the world emerge and increase the competition among these markets.Consequently, currently the attractiveness and competiveness of the securities market in Lithuania has become a particularly relevant problem influencing not only market members, but the country's capital market and the whole economy as well.The Lithuanian securities market constitutes part of the financial market which involves long-term and medium-term investments in stock and debt securities.The attractiveness of the securities market -the profit potential -is analyzed in accordance with both capital demand and capital supply.The competiveness of the securities market is perceived as the capability to effectively compete in the world while securing most beneficial circumstances for investors and issuers.
The aim of this paper is to identify, analyze, and evaluate the main factors influencing the attractiveness and competiveness of the securities market in Lithuania.
In order to achieve the aim, the following objectives have been put forward: • to conceptualize the attractiveness and competiveness of the securities market; • to identify and analyze the main factors influencing the attractiveness and competiveness of the securities market; • to evaluate the main factors influencing the attractiveness and competiveness of the securities market in Lithuania; • to construct a model and to evaluate the attractiveness and competiveness of the securities market in Lithuania.In order to implement the objectives, an asystemic and comparative analysis of the scientific literature, covering the attractiveness and competiveness of securities, has been accomplished in the first chapter of the paper.The second chapter deals with the methodology of a quantitative research.The third chapter presents and discusses the results of the statistical data quantitative analysis and the evaluation of the main factors influencing the attractiveness and competiveness of the securities market in Lithuania.The developed model helps to estimate the attractiveness and competiveness of the securities market in Lithuania.The paper is completed with the conclusions based on the generalization of the research results concerning the attractiveness and competiveness of the Lithuanian securities market.

The concept of market attractiveness
One of the most inherent developmental features of the present economy, social politics and culture is the process of globalization based on the objective nature principle of causality, i.e. how certain activities in certain circumstances always create respective consequences.Globalization processes are seen as a result of the world states' development which opened up their economies and liberalized economic relations among the countries thus motivating the involvement and participation of national companies in the global economic system (Pryhara, 2006).Upon joining the European Union in 2004, the Lithuanian market has become much more accessible to foreign investors; this made it possible to attract internal as well as the foreign investors.First of all, foreign investors thoroughly analyze an unknown market in order to determine whether such investment will be benefitial, i.e. they determine the market attractiveness level.
When analysing the definitions of market attractiveness presented by different authors, one should notice that even though they are quite distinct, the key factors determining the market attractiveness remain quite similar.According to Y. Azarian (1998), the market attractiveness concept and the criteria of international markets is typically used when it comes to companies' objective to evaluate and choose new markets for business and are related to the analysis of external market environmental factors for business activity.Most business and marketing dictionaries define the market attractiveness

High
Medium Low

FIG. 1. The McKinsey market attractiveness-competitiveness matrix
Source: Amatulli C., Caputo T., Guido G., 2011, p. 62. assessment from the position of a customer, a company, or an investor, i.e. as a profit or benefit opportunity in a particular market or industry.The higher the potential gain or benefit, the more attractive a market is considered to be.
The attractiveness of the market in other literary sources is very closely related, to or even identified with, the market competitiveness.According to the American Marketing Association dictionary, the market attractiveness defines the degree of market opportunities provided by a market segment and a company's ability to meet the segment's needs considering the competitive environment.Meanwhile, the market attractiveness by M. E. Porter (1980) is considered to be closely related to the competitive situation in the market, i.e. economy competitiveness of companies and the country.M. E. Porter (1980), based on the five-forces model, argues that an attractive market is the one in which you can get the maximum profit or benefit, in other words, the more relevant market participants getting on for ideal competition, the less attractive it becomes.In the matrix of market attractiveness prepared by McKinsey & Company (1970), each business unit or product is classified in accordance with market attractiveness and the strength of its competitive position.Also, these two factors are dependent on each other, i.e. the high market attractiveness directly determines the high market competitiveness (Fig. 1).Baaken (1989) has developed a comprehensive criteria model for evaluating the new technology-oriented companies according to three main appropriate dimensions: the entrepreneur, technologies, and the market.The market dimension in this model is widely developed and consists of two main categories: market attractiveness and competitiveness.The Baaken model is based on the fact that market attractiveness and competitiveness are interdependent and laboriously separable characteristics (see Fig. 1).
The summary could conclude that market attractiveness, although approached differently by various authors, has the general feature -usually related to the company's entering into a new and unknown market and closely associated with the market competiveness (see Table 1).

Factors influencing market attractiveness
Companies or investors considering their opportunities and feasibility of entering a new market perform the analysis of market attractiveness in order to determine whether the entrance into a particular market is profitable and how much it could make (Porter, 1980).However, for assessing the market attractiveness, it is necessary to identify the main factors influencing it.
According to the marketing term dictionary, the main factors of market attractiveness are composed of four dimensions: market factors such as marketing growth rate, market size, and lifetime stage; economic-technological factors such as the intensity of investment, industry profitability, barriers to enter or leave the market, and the access to raw materials; competitive factors such as the types of direct competitors, competition structure, substitute risk, the power of negotiation between suppliers and buyers; environmental factors such as legal climate or regulation, the degree of social acceptance, and the human factor.
The M. W. Peng (2009) factors influencing the market attractiveness are also divided into four groups: market size and growth rates, institutional contexts, the competitive environment, and the cultural, administrative, geographical, and economic distance (Fig. 2).Most important are the market size and growth rates.
Khanna, Palepu and Sinha (2005) have developed a five-dimensional system which allows the attractiveness evaluation of a particular country or region according to the institutional context.They state that a country's political and social system, market openness, labour market, product market, and capital market influence the company's ability to successfully enter a particular country and compete in it.From their point of view, the most important aspect is the political system of the country: an open country gives a possibility for market participants to develop their business freely and effectively.The second place according to the importance is the competitive environment: the number of competitors, the market size and quality.M.W. Peng (2009) states that the country's cultural, administrative, geographical and economic distances are very important and broadly interpreted.Differences among religious, races, social norms and languages can make the cultural distance.These differences can quickly become the barriers for entering the market.Meanwhile, the administrative or political distance is created by differences among valid laws, politics, and institutional rules including international relations among the countries, contracts and membership in international organizations.Geographical distance can be defined as the simplest, i.e. it is the distance in kilometres in which the countries are away from each other.The other features attributed to the geographical distance are the physical size of the country, the average distances to the country's borders, access to the sea or the ocean, topography, the country's transport and communication infrastructure.Economic distance is determined by a disposable income which creates the largest distance among the countries.R. J. Best (2005) has divided all the factors influencing the market attractiveness into three groups: market factors, the intensity of competition, and entrance in the market (Fig. 3).Market size, growth rate, and the power of the buyer are attributed to the market factors as very important as they are the initial data which are being analyzed before entering a new market and have a significant influence on the final decision.Meanwhile, the competition intensity is calculated in terms of price rivalry, the substitute, and the simplicity of entering the market, i.e. the existing market barriers, legal regulation, etc.The third factor -the entrance to the market -consists of knowing the customers, strategies of products and prices, and access to the channels, i.e. access to suppliers, raw material, capacity and potential of sales (Best, 2005).
The Kotler's (1997) approach is similar because market attractiveness is defined as the weighted arithmetical average of factors.The most important is the total size of the market, the market growth rate, profit margins, and competition intensity.The choice of the factors' list and especially their weights are a strategic decision of the company and varies depending on the internal policy of the company.For example, a big weight attributed to the market growth factor is usually selected by the companies which focus on innovative markets.On the other hand, considerable attention to the past profit margins can be a disadvantage to the company focused on the innovation of products or technology that may turn out to be necessary for a successful future activity (Kotler, 1997).
Although the factors influencing market attractiveness by various authors are categorized differently, the principles remain the same.Also, the attractiveness of the market according to the authors analysed are almost inseparable from the market competitiveness.

STOCK MARKET COMPETITIVENESS
The economic glossary defines competitiveness as "the capability of person, product, company or branch to compete in the market".The English dictionary proposes another definition -"efforts of two or more independent parties to assure the best conditions for the third party."Academic debates regarding stock market competitiveness started more than half an age ago.The discussions were about whether the competition among the market makers or the monopoly of services could maximize the profitability.Coffee (2002) states that the number of stock exchanges will undoubtedly decrease radically in the nearest future due to the globalization and technologies.As the number of stock exchanges decreases, the competition among those remaining will increase.In this section, the factors defined as most important for stock market competitiveness will be analyzed.
Technologies and globalization provide access to foreign stock markets.More and more often companies and stock markets use cross listing.Most of the factors affecting The analysis of literature (see Table 2 which presents the most used criteria of competitiveness) shows that stock market liquidity, market size, listings, cross listing, transaction fees and legal regulation are the most important criteria measuring the stock market competitiveness.A full-scale analysis is presented in Appendix 1.Some authors analyzing the stock market (Shih-Fang Lo, 2013) divide participants into two groups: those who form capital supply and those who form capital demand (see Fig. 4).Analyzing stock market competitiveness from the perspective of the capital supply side (competition for listing), the important criteria are the ones that are important for financial market participants with capital shortage, in particular, the criteria which are important for joint-stock companies, government companies, and other issuers which are desirable in the listings.Analyzing stock market competitiveness from the perspective of the capital demand side (competition for trading), the important criteria are the ones that are important for financial market participants with capital excess -physical and institutional investors.

Stock market competitiveness factors
According to the corresponding literature, 12 factors with the biggest impact on the stock market competitiveness from the perspective of both capital demand and supply sides are presented in Fig. 4: The market size as one of the fundamental factors of stock market competitiveness has been present in 8 out of 12 researches shown in Table 2.While talking about market size, some authors (Coffee, 2002;Sharma, Bodla, 2011) include smaller factors such as listings, market capitalization, capitalization share in the gross domestic product, and IPOs.Others name those factors separately as the criteria of stock market competitiveness (Kennedy, 2004;Carpentier, 2004;Shih-Fang Lo, 2013).To define market size stock market capitalization, listings and trade volume will be used in this paper (see Fig. 5).
Market size can be directly related to the market competitiveness.The larger the market, the more attractive it is, because it provides access to the bigger investor base.Additionally, a larger market can offer a better visibility of the company as well as the reputation (Pagano et al., 2001).
According to Shih-Fang Lo (2013), the number of listed companies (listings) is one of the main stock market competitiveness criteria as listings show not only the market size, but also indicate the market attractiveness to other companies.
New listings show the attractiveness of a stock market for newly listed companies (Shih-Fang Lo, 2013).The World Federation of Exchanges states this factor to be one of the most important, because the bigger the listing, the more reliable, developed and liquid is the stock exchange.
The trade volume (turnover) shows the amount of securities traded over the period of time in terms of money (Carpentier, 2008;Chang et al., 2000).When the trade volume is bigger, a market is more liquid as the issuers can attract the capital faster ceteris paribus."A liquid market is one in which large amounts of securities can be traded in a minimum number of transactions and with a little impact on prices" (Kennedy, Governor, 2004, p. 36).According to Pagano (2001), a higher liquidity may have an impact on a lower price of the capital due to the higher appreciation of liquid stocks by investors.Noia (1998) states that liquidity attracts liquidity.When the market, liquidity is growing, more participants are being attracted to the market, and the liquidity grows.Pagano (2001) and Klein (2005) state that a higher liquidity increases the satisfaction for both market parties.According to these authors, liquidity should be perceived from two different perspectives as the speed (possibility of the market to perform transaction outright) and the depth (possibility to close transactions without a big impact on market prices).Therefore, the liquid market assures a fast stock transfer with a minimal number of transactions and a small impact on the price.The Stable stock price during transactions shows market stability and increases market attractiveness.The market depth as well as liquidity are measured by the Amivest liquidity ratio defined by Cooper, Groth, and Avera in 1985.
Coffee (2002), who has analyzed stock market competitiveness, states that cross listing is the major competitiveness indicator.Cross listing is calculated as the number of foreign companies listed in the local stock exchange as well as the number of local companies listed in the foreign stock exchange.Pagano et al. (2001) state that companies tend to list their stock in larger, more liquid markets.Therefore, a relatively big number 125 125 of foreign companies listed in the local stock exchange shows market attractiveness.A relatively big number of foreign issuers in the local stock market indicates that the market has advantages as compared with the other foreign markets.
Zingales (2007), Klein (2005) consider listing fees to be among the most significant factors of stock market competition.Klein (2005) in his researches states that transaction fees (fees that are paid to intermediaries and exchange as commissions, also other fees for transactions, including fees to the government) reduces market liquidity as well as attractiveness and competitiveness.Even though these fees are not critical for choosing the stock exchange, they are an additional cost to the company.When fees in one particular stock exchange are very high as compared with others, issuers may prefer those others because the cost of capital rises significantly.Analogically, when the fees are low, the stock market (exchange) becomes attractive to a bigger number of issues.This leads to a higher market liquidity, as well as to its attractiveness and competitiveness.
The legal regulation is mentioned as one of the key factors of stock market competitiveness in more than half of the analyzed research papers (Table 2).The majority of them integrate legal regulations of market transparency, accounting standards, enforcement of contracts, efficiency of the bureaucracy, and access to information (Shih-Fang Lo, 2013;Kennedy, 2004;Klein, 2005;Bancel andMittoo, 2001, Pagano et al., 2001).While analyzing the legal regulations of the stock market, Shih-Fang Lo (2013) as the criteria of stock market attractiveness additionally analyzes accounting standards, enforcement of contracts, and the efficiency of the bureaucracy.Pagano et al. (2001) have added to that the degree of shareholders' protection, the index of contract enforcement, and the index of bureaucracy delay to the analysis of the legal regulation of the stock market.According to him, a stricter legal regulation creates a better reputation of the capital market which may lead to a lower price of the capital to issuers.Kennedy (2004) joins stock market transparency with publicity and access to the relevant information.Klein (2005) states that a better protection of shareholder rights and enforcement of trading laws are related with lower spreads.The more effective bureaucracy is, the more attractive is the stock market because of lower listing fees.
It is believed that higher legal standards attract new companies to the stock exchange (Coffee, 2002).According to Klein (2005), a strong protection for minority shareholders is related with a higher listing, because better shareholders' rights and enforcement of contracts have an impact on a lower spread.The lower risk of contract nonfulfilment leads to a higher activity of investors.A bigger trade volume increases market liquidity as well as its attractiveness and competitiveness.The legal regulation is considered to be an important factor of stock market attractiveness and competitiveness; therefore, according to the corresponding researches, it should be analyzed by five components: transparency, enforcement of contracts, efficiency of bureaucracy, access to the information, and accounting standards (Fig. 7).Kim and Mehrotra (2007) as well as the NASDAQ stock exchange define market makers as the most important group of financial intermediaries.According to the NAS-DAQ OMX, market makers "provide an extra assurance to investors, as their task is to maintain the bid and offer orders in certain size in the defined price spread on continuous basis."Competition among market makers assures the best prices of stocks for investors.Therefore, the bigger number of market makers leads to a bigger competition which may result in best prices for investors.
Besides capital gains, investors also expect dividends (Shih-Fang Lo, 2013).Dividends are included in the 29 factors of stock market competitiveness measure by the World Stock Exchanges Federation.
According to Shih-Fang Lo (2013), in addition to the traditional stock share trading, markets offer derivatives, investment funds, exchange trade funds, etc. Shey et al., (2006) propose that investors prefer a stock market with a wide assortment of financial products.This allows to allocate the risk considering individual possibilities.A higher diversification of products indicates the innovation of the market (Shih-Fang Lo, 2013).
It may be concluded that market competitiveness and attractiveness are concurrent.A market attractive for investors and issuers will be competitive among other markets, and the competitive market will be attractive for both capital supply and demand.Thus, based on an assumption that these two charecteristics are almost inseparable, the further assumption of this paper is that the factors analysed will affect the competitiveness as well as the attractiveness of the securities market.

THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY OF THE ATTRACTIVENESS AND COMPETITIVENESS OF THE SECURITIES MARKET IN LITHUANIA
With reference to the already accomplished systematic analysis, the following six stock market competitiveness and attractivenes indicators were chosen for the evaluationof the competitiveness and attractiveness of the Lithuanian stock market: the number of listed companies, the number of new listed companies, the trading scope (turnover), cross-listing, liquidity, and dividend payment.In the beginning, the time series analysis covering a period of 11 years of each indicator is presented.Their strength of correlation with the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian securities market is verified and, by selecting correlating variables, the model of the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian securities market is formed using the regression equation (1): The attractiveness and competitiveness of securities market = = f (the number of listed companies, the number of new listed companies, trading extent, cross-listing, and liquidity) (1) The Buffett (2001) index is selected to measure the attractiveness and competitiveness.It is estimated as the ratio of capitalization of the securities market to the gross national product (2):

Buffet index of stock market attractiveness = Market capitalization
(2) and competitiveness GNP The number of listed companies is the number of the companies included in the NASAQ OMX Vilnius stock exchange list at the end of 2003-2013.In order to evaluate whether this index is a significant factor of the securities market competitiveness and attractiveness, the following hypothesis is verified: H1: The attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian securities market is directly dependent on the number of listed companies.
The number of newly listed companies is analyzed in order to evaluate the net change of listed issuers: if the market is attractive and competitive, this index is positive, if not -negative (formula 3).

The number of new listed companies = the number of newly listed companies -
-the number of companies withdrawn from listing. (3) Hypothesis H2: The attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian securities market is directly dependent on the net number of newly listed companies.
The trading volume is measured by the annual turnover of the securities market in terms of monetary value (Shih-Fang Lo, 2013;2013;Kennedy and Governor, 2004;Chang et al., 2000).In order to evaluate the Vilnius Stock Exchange attractiveness and competitiveness on the basis of the turnover indicator, the average annual turnover of 2003-2013 was compared with the stock exchange turnover of Riga and Tallinn.
Hypothesis H3: The attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian securities market is directly dependent on the trade volume (turnover).
The ratio of cross listing is the number of companies in which the majority of the capital is owned by foreign investors and which are included in the lists of the Lithuanian stock exchange in 2003-2013.
Hypothesis H4: The attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian securities market is directly dependent on the number of foreign listed companies.
The liquidity of the securities market is measured using the Amivest liquidity ratio which measures the market depth -the possibility to complete transactions without major changes in market prices (formula 4): ber of companies in which the majority of the capital is e lists of Lithuanian stock exchange in 2003-2013.nd competitiveness of Lithuanian securities market is isted companies.
is measured using the Amivest liquidity ratio which o complete transactions without major changes in market Hypothesis H4: The attractiveness and competitiveness of Lithuanian securities market directly dependent on the number of foreign listed companies.
The liquidity of securities market is measured using the Amivest liquidity ratio wh measures the market depth -the possibility to complete transactions without major changes in mar prices (formula 4).
where p 1 is the closing price of security on a day 1, p 0 is the closing price of security on a previous trading day.
The Amivest Liquidity ratio shows how well a stock or investment is able to absorb trad volumes without a significant move in its price.It is based on the intuition that in a liquid marke large trading volume may be realized with small change in price and profitability.The higher is Amivest liquidity ratio the lower is the impact on the price, i.e. large amounts of stock can be trad with little effect on prices, which indicates the greater securities market liquidity.
H5: The attractiveness and competitiveness of Lithuanian securities market is direc dependent on liquidity.
Dividends is a ratio which is calculated as the number of those paying dividends to all lis companies.
, where p 1 is the closing price of security on a day 1, and p 0 is the closing price of security on a previous trading day.
The Amivest liquidity ratio shows how well a stock or investment is able to absorb trading volumes without a significant move in its price.It is based on the intuition that in a liquid market a large trading volume may be realized with a small change in price and profitability.The higher is the Amivest liquidity ratio, the lower is the impact on the price, i.e. large amounts of stock can be traded with a little effect on prices, which indicates the greater securities market liquidity.
H5: the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian securities market are directly dependent on liquidity.
Dividends are a ratio which is calculated as the number of those paying dividends to all listed companies.
Data.The number of listed companies, the number of new listed companies, turnover, liquidity, cross listing are analyzed using the data of the Vilnius Stock Exchange official and additional lists at the end of the quarter (n = 44).The indicator "dividends" is analyzed by using annual data.Data of 2003-2013 (except the indicator "dividends" which due to the lack of data covers a shorter period of 2005-2012) is used.Data source -the website of the NASDAQ QMX Baltic http://www.nasdaqomxbaltic.com.The research is performed using the SPSS data analysis package.

The influence of the number of listed companies
The analysis of the number change of listed companies in the Vilnius Stock Exchange during 2003-2013 (Fig. 10) shows that starting from the second half of 2003, the total number of listed companies was gradually declining.The more pronounced decrease in the number of listed companies has been observed since the I quarter of 2011 until the I quarter of 2012 when it droped by 8 issuers (from 41 to 33).Since this ratio is considered to be one of the main market criteria of attractiveness and competitiveness, it can be said that since 2003 until 2013 the Lithuanian securities market attractiveness and competitiveness gradually declined considering both aspects -capital demand and supply.The decreasing number of listed companies shows that the market is neither attractive nor competitive for companies regarding other markets.The decline of this ratio means that the market itself alongside the diversification possibilities has decreased.The number of companies results of the correlation analysis show that there is a positive moderate strength relation (Pearson's correlation coefficient is 0.555, Table 3) between the number of listed companies and the securities market attractiveness and competitiveness.The hypothesis that the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian securities market is associated with the number of listed companies is not rejected (the null hypothesis that there is no relation between the market attractiveness / competitiveness and the number of listed companies was rejected at the 99% significance level (Table 3).

Index Pearson's correlation coefficient p value
The number of listed companies 0.555 0.000 The This suggests that there is a significant correlation between the attractiveness / competitiveness and the number of listed companies.As the number of listed companies in 2003-2013 decreased, we can conclude that the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian securities market during this analyzed period has also decreased.

The influence of the number of newly listed companies
The number of newly listed companies during the period 2003-2013 fluctuated in the interval from -3 to + 4.However, the correlation analysis has showen that there is no relation between the number of newly listed companies and the securities market attractiveness and competitiveness (Table 3).This leads to the conclusion that not the number of newly listed and withdrawn companies but the total number of listed companies is important to the market.

Trade volume impact
Having compared the average annual turnover of 2003-2013 in Lithuania with the stock exchange turnover of Riga and Tallinn, we can see that the Lithuanian market is more attractive than the Latvian market but much less attractive than the market in Estonia (Fig. 10).
During the period analysed, the turnover has been quite volatile (s = 661875288), particularly in the fourth quarter of 2006 when "Mažeikių Nafta" was sold for nearly 4 billion litas (Fig. 11), but it shows no clear trend.A correlation between the stock turnover in the Vilnius Stock Exchange and the attractiveness and competitiveness of this market has shown a positive moderate relation between those two criteria (Pearson's correlation coefficient is 0.424, Table 3).This shows a direct relation between the stock turnover and the market attractiveness and competitiveness.

The influence of cross-listing
During the period 2003-2013, the number of companies included in the trade list as well as the number of foreign capital companies were declining (see Fig. 12).It systematically decreased from 16 foreign capital companies in 2004 to 8 companies in 2012.
The correlation analysis has revealed that the stock market attractiveness and competitiveness are positively correlated with cross-listing (Pearson's coefficient is equal to 0.515, see Table 3).
Therefore, we may say that the more of cross-listed firms are included, the more attractive and competitive the Lithuanian stock market is.The decreasing number of cross-listed companies in the Vilnius stock exchange in the period 2003-2013 shows the decline of the Lithuanian stock market attractiveness and competitiveness with the assumption that companies with foreign capital have chosen other stock markets to list in.The Amivest liquidity ratio shows that the liquidity of the Lithuanian stock market is very volatile (s = 25471165).This is the result of a high turnover fluctuation as well as the volatility of prices.Since the Amivest liquidity ratio contains a turnover, there are outliers in the 4th quarter of the year 2006 because of the sale of "Mažeikių nafta" mentioned above (see Fig. 13).Another significant fluctuation of the stock market liquidity was observed in the 2nd quarter of 2012 when the turnover of "TEO" shares increased more than 4 times.This was related to the takeover of "TEO" shares by the Swedish company "Telia Sonera".
The unstable liquidity diminishes the Lithuanian stock market attractiveness and competitiveness because the stock market liquidity is highly related to the satisfaction of supply and demand sides (Klein, 2005).The dissatisfaction of market participants indicated the unattractiveness of the market itself.The correlation analysis has revealed that the stock market attractiveness and competitiveness are positively moderately related with liquidity (Pearson's correlation coefficient 0.396, Table 3).During the period 2003-2013, the Lithuanian stock market liquidity was relatively low and neither growing nor falling.

Volatility of dividends in the Vilnius Stock Exchange
The analysis of dividend payments in the Vilnius stock exchange (Fig. 14) has revealed that there were fewer companies which paid dividends than those which did not in the period 2003-2013.Reasonably, the outliers were observed during the years before the economical crisis (2005)(2006)(2007).The bigger number of the companies not paying dividends than the ones paying them is a negative indicator of the stock market and competitiveness from the viewpoint of the capital supply side since the dividends as well as capital gains are the main investors' objectives.
One could come to the conclusion that the Lithuanian stock market in the period 2003-2013 was rather unattractive and uncompetitive than attractive and competitive.

The Lithuanian stock market attractiveness and competitiveness evaluation model
The multiple linear regression function has been prepared in order to evaluate the aggregate impact of the factors analysed in the previous chapters on the Lithuanian stock market attractiveness and competitiveness: Stock market attractiveness / competitiveness = -0.923+ 0.036 × Listing + + 3.477Е-009 × Liquidity + 3.150E-11 × Trade volume +0.009 × Cross listings (5) A new listing is not included in the multiple linear regression model due to the fact that there is no statistically significant relationship between new listings and the Lithuanian stock market attractiveness and competitiveness.
The calculated R 2 shows that the analyzed factors (listings, trade volume, cross-listings, and liquidity) explain 40.2% of the Lithuanian stock market attractiveness / competitiveness.Therefore, it be assumed that the remaining 59.8% of the Lithuanian stock market attractiveness and competitiveness are determined by other factors.The high level of significance (p < 0.00) in the ANOVA analysis has assured that the model is suitable.
In accordance with the model ( 5) it might be stated that listing has the highest impact on the Lithuanian stock market attractiveness and competitiveness, whereas trade volume and liquidity have the lowest one.
Because of the outliers detected, additional calculations were made in order to ascertain whether these outliers influence the regression model.The Cook's distance revealed the marginal mean (4/n) to be bigger than two Cook's distances.Standardized dfBETA of each independent variable has shown that there are 10 values which are bigger than the critical value (2/√n).Therefore, 10 values out of 176 are detected as outliers, and their removal could have a significant influence on the coefficients of the regression (see Appendix 2).To summarize, it might be stated that there are outliers affecting the prediction and forecasting based on the regression model.According to the authors, the main reasons are the economic situation which strongly affects the Lithuanian stock market, as well as the subjective factors that have been analyzed in the expert survey.

CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSALS
The analysis of scientific literature identified 12 main factors: the number of listed companies, the number of new listed companies, trade volume, cross listing, listing fees, legal regulation, liquidity, the number of active market formers, dividends, product diversification, transaction costs, and shareholders' protection influencing the attractiveness and competitiveness of the securities market.
A quantitative analysis of the influence of six factors determining the securities market attractiveness and competitiveness has revealed the following: • based on a correlation analysis, it can be concluded that during the period 2003-2013 the main factors that showed a positive and significant impact on the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian securities market were the number of companies listed, trade turnover, the number of foreign companies, liquidity, and dividends; • The declining number of companies listed, trade turnover, the number of foreign companies, the low and volatile liquidity have been reducing the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Lithuanian securities market; • assessing the Lithuanian securities market attractiveness and competitiveness from the point of capital demand, it could be concluded that the market is not attractive for issuers.With the decreasing number of listed companies and trade turnover in 2003-2013, the Lithuanian securities market was loosing its attractiveness from the point of view of both capital demand and capital supply.
Based on the results, the following proposals are made: • in order to increase the Lithuanian securities market attractiveness from both capital demand and supply sides and the competitiveness regarding other markets' greater attention, support from the government is needed.The state policy should encourage large state-owned companies to participate in the securities market.
Their freely quoted shares would significantly increase the liquidity and turnover of the market; • greater attention to the financial and investment education would enhance the capital demand and increase the market liquidity, turnover, and attractiveness for new investors and issuers as well as competitiveness in regard to other markets.The further analysis of the attractiveness and competitiveness of the securities market will be performed qualitatively by using the expert survey and comparative analysis.

FIG. 4 .
FIG. 4. Model of competition for listing and trade in the stock marketSource: Compiled by the authors, on the basis ofShih-Fang Lo, 2013.

FIG
FIG. 5.The stock market competitiveness factor "Market size" Source: compiled by the authors.

FIG. 7 .
FIG. 7. Scheme of the stock market competitiveness factor "legal regulation"Source: compiled by the authors.
4) y on a day 1, p 0 is the closing price of security on a ow well a stock or investment is able to absorb trading ice.It is based on the intuition that in a liquid market a mall change in price and profitability.The higher is the ct on the price, i.e. large amounts of stock can be traded greater securities market liquidity.titiveness of Lithuanian securities market is directly ted as the number of those paying dividends to all listed (4) V = trade turnover in LTL, R = absolute rate of return:

FIG. 8 .
FIG. 8.The number of listed companies in the Vilnius Stock Exchange (2003-2013)Source: compiled by the authors according to data of NASDAQOMX Vilnius.

FIG. 9 .
FIG. 9. Change of the number of newly listed companies in 2003-2013Source: compiled by the authors according to data of NASDAQOMX Vilnius.

FIG. 10 .
FIG. 10.The annual average turnover of the Nasdaq OMX Baltic stock exchanges in 2003-2013Source: compiled by the authors according to NASDAQ OMX Vilnius data.

FIG. 12 .
FIG. 12. Change in the number of foreign companies listed in the Vilnius stock exchange during the period 2003-2013Source: compiled by the authors according to data of NASDAQOMX Vilnius.

FIG. 14 .
FIG. 14. Number of companies paying dividends in the Lithuanian Stock Exchange in the periodSource: compiled by the authors on basis of Nasdaq OMX Vilnius data.

TABLE 2 . Stock market competitiveness criteria in the corresponding literature Criterion Author Liquidity Market size Number of listed comp.
Source: compiled by the authors according to Best R. J., 2005, p. 506.
Source: compiled by the authors according to Nasdaq OMX data and SPSS.