Bearish Mood Drags Croatian Equity Market Over 6.0% Lower

"Trading on the Zagreb bourse was extremely pessimistic. The panic among investors knocked down the price of nearly all of the most liquid shares and that led to suspension of trading for some time," said a broker with the Ilirika brokerage, adding that the Croatian stock market did not buck the negative pull of other European bourses.

The bourse’s 28-share benchmark CROBEX index dropped 6.67% to end at 1,696.91 points, its lowest level since January 2005. Intraday it fell to 1,675.36 but later pared the losses.

The CROEMI 20-share index, calculated by Raiffeisenbank Austria, sank 6.09% to 1,550.36.

The narrowest index, CROX, which tracks the 12 most traded stocks on the Zagreb market and is calculated by the Vienna bourse, declined 5.90% in euro terms to 1,029.56 points.

Telecommunications company T-HT, an index heavyweight, attracted the day’s largest turnover of 23.1 million kuna as its share price lost 4.94% to 193.06 kuna.

Tobacco and tourism company Adris was down 5.38% to 193 kuna on 8.9 million kuna.

Food producer Podravka fell 0.71% to 281.99 kuna on 8.2 million kuna of turnover.

Losses of more than 10% were recorded by civil engineering company IGH, down 10.74%, mineral fertiliser maker Petrokemija, down 10.83%, and shipping company Tankerska Plovidba, down 15.3%.

Very few shares resisted the negative trend while others, including T-HT, reached all-time lows.

Turnover in floor trading almost doubled to 85.7 million kuna ($15.1 million/12 million euro) from 37.9 million kuna a day earlier.

The fixed-income CROBIS index added 0.06% to 89.29 points.

(1 euro = 7.1246 Croatian kuna)