Belgrade Indices End Mostly Higher in Low Volumes

“I think it has been the most dreadful turnover since the bourse launched trading. What a tragedy it was today!” a local broker told SeeNews.

“It is of no consequence that the [blue-chip] index ended higher when you have such turnover,” the broker said. “To record only 27 million dinars ($379,700/ 300,700 euro) [in turnover] is really ridiculous, I haven’t seen that before.”

The blue-chip BELEX15 index gained 0.11% to 551.30 points on Monday after shedding 0.98% on Friday. The index has lost some 76% since the beginning of the year due to increased risk aversion among investors fuelled by the global financial crisis.

Total BELEX turnover shrank to some 27 million dinars from 144 million dinars on Friday.

“Nothing could be bought or sold. There was no chance to make any profit, no chance,” the broker said.

The composite BELEXline index edged up 0.04% to 1,209.29 points, while the joint SRX index of the bourses in Belgrade and Vienna was down 0.26% to 255.92.

Blue-chip soybean producer Sojaprotein lost 2.39% to 898 dinars in 5.6 million dinars of turnover, the highest on Monday. Blue chip AIK Banka was down 0.25% to 1,989 dinars in 3.9 million dinars of turnover, second highest for the day.

Engineering holding company Energoprojekt recorded the biggest gains among the blue chips, rising 4.53% to close at 715 dinars.

(1 euro = 89.7893 dinars)