Belgrade Stocks Sink Deeper, Volume Slim

“Nothing new happened today, the turnover is thin again,” a local broker told SeeNews.

The blue-chip BELEX15 index closed down 0.17% at 546.59 points on Tuesday after falling to a new record low of 544.57 earlier in the session and following a 2.67% drop on Monday. It was the benchmark's eleventh negative close in a row. The index has lost over 76% since the beginning of the year due to increased risk aversion among investors fuelled by the global financial crisis.

The composite BELEXline index dropped 4.60% to 1,212.72 points, its lowest mark so far in 2008. The joint SRX index of the bourses in Belgrade and Vienna rose 2.09% to 258.90.

Total BELEX turnover rose to some 89 million dinars ($1.3 million/1.0 million euro) from 66 million dinars on Monday as government bonds generated around 41 million euro of total turnover on the day.

Blue-chip household appliance producer Alfa Plam fell 7.69% to 6,000 dinars in 12.9 million dinars of turnover, the highest on Tuesday. Blue-chip rubber and chemicals group Tigar shed 0.53% to 564 dinars in 4.8 million dinars of turnover, second highest for the day.

Earlier this month Tigar launched a buyout bid for up to 5.0% of its capital to prevent a further drop in its share price and to raise liquidity to the level required for the company to continue trading on the bourse’s prime market.

On Tuesday, losers outnumbered gainers 40 to 13, as 39 stocks were unchanged.

(1 euro = 88.5314 dinars)