Amsterdam - The mood at the Dutch stock exchange remained pessimistic on Friday with Amsterdam's main index AEX remaining under 200 points.

By 12:50 pm (1150 GMT) the AEX stood at 199 points, slightly up from its 15-year-low of 198.22 points reached half an hour before.

Bank and insurer giant ING Group saw its share value drop most (down 5.58 per cent) and now stood at 2.469 euros (3.099 dollars).

Next in line were TNT postal service (down 2.74 per cent) and chip manufacturer AMSL (down 2.50 per cent).

Having suffered several days of share value loss, shares of building company BAM gained on Friday (up 3.79 per cent), as did Royal Dutch Shell (up 2.32 per cent). (dpa)