Belgrade Shares Plunge as Recession Fears Drain Optimism Out of Market

“The recession’s beginning is now official,” Aleksandar Malisic, head of Raiffeisenbank's investment department, told SeeNews and pointed to recent GDP data about Germany and the U.K. Earlier on Friday, the UK said its economy in the third quarter shrank for the first time in 16 years.

“Not a single favourable figure concerning the future exists so it is definitely a recession,” he added.

The blue-chip BELEX15 index fell 6.15% to 744.41 points on Friday, losing 8.67% within a week. BELEX15 has lost over 65% since the beginning of the year.

The composite BELEXline index on Friday lost 4.41%, reaching 1,525.73 points, recording a weekly loss of 6.19%. The joint SRX index of the bourses in Belgrade and Vienna plunged 5.77% to 374.78.

“No one is interested in the bourse anymore, cash has become the most wanted commodity,” Malisic said. “I can't see an optimist anywhere. No one is optimistic. There is no basis for it as all the indicators on all bourses are catastrophic.”

Stocks around the globe tumbled on Friday on deepening recession concerns, honorably marking the 79th anniversary of Wall Street’s Black Thursday collapse.

Total turnover on the BELEX rose to 157 million dinars ($2.4 million/1.9 million euro) from 102 million dinars on Thursday. The total weekly turnover fell 40.2% compared to a week earlier.

Blue-chip soybean producer Sojaprotein Becej decreased 6.18% to 911 dinars in 47.5 million dinars of turnover, the highest on Friday. Blue-chip AIK Banka closed down 9.71% at 2,865 dinars in 18 million dinars of turnover, the second highest for the day.

(1 euro = 83.3997 dinars)