BELGRADE (Serbia), November 20 (SeeNews) – Belgrade blue chips closed nearly five percent lower on Tuesday and brokers expect the market will lose more ground ahead of a December 10 report on the future status of the U.N.-run Serbian province of Kosovo.
“I don’t know what to say. It looks like it will continue to be like this until December 10, which is our 'D-Day', as the Kosovo deadline is there,” Nikola Renovica, a broker with Beomonet brokerage, told SeeNews.
“Selling by foreign investors is increasing, which means they are pulling out capital. There is no indication how or when this will end. What is offered is offered at unusually low prices and I think they will fall further,” Renovica added.
The blue-chip index BELEX15 fell 4.95% to close at 2,290.99 points. The broader BELEXline index lost 3.05% to finish at 3,878.48. The joint SRX index of the bourses in Belgrade and Vienna dropped 6.65% to end at 1,262.05.
Market participants say they can hardly find an explanation for the market's fall other than the Kosovo situation, which jeopardizes Serbia’s political and economic stability. Kosovo has been under U.N. administration since NATO bombs drove out Serb forces amid inter-ethnic fighting in 1999. Serbs oppose any form of independence for the province, while Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insists on it.
The listless summer season on BELEX evolved into a continuous market fall in September to end in a slide which many called “the red October” on the Belgrade bourse. November has been similar.
Shares in AIK Banka plunged 7.20% to 9,254 dinars ($171/156 euro) on Tuesday in 38 million dinars of turnover, while fellow blue chip Metals Banka lost 10.09% to 44,000 dinars as 328 shares changed hands.
Total BELEX turnover rose to 448 million dinars from 277 million on Monday.
(1 euro = 79.978 dinars)