Bosnia’s Sarajevo Blue Chips Rise, Banja Luka Volumes Soar

“Last month's trend was carried over into this week with investors withdrawing from investment funds and shifting to companies, mainly blue-chip [pharmaceutical firm] Bosnalijek and [Bosnia’s biggest telco] BH Telecom,” Predrag Mladjen of Sarajevo-based brokerage Hypo Vrijednosnice told SeeNews.

The SASX-10 index, tracking the 10 blue chips on the Sarajevo Stock Exchange (SASE), Bosnia’s bigger bourse, gained 2.38% to 1,198.28 points.

SASE’s weekly turnover rose to 5.28 million marka ($3.87 million/2.70 million euro) from 4.24 million marka last week, the bourse said in its weekly trading report.

Austrian-owned commercial bank ABS Banka posted the highest weekly turnover of 2.70 million marka on SASE. Its shares were traded at an average weighted price of 200.00 marka on Friday, down 9.98% from a week ago. ABS Banka was the weakest performer in the SASX-10 index this week.

State-controlled civil engineering firm Energoinvest was the best performer in SASX-10, rising 10.81% from last Friday to 8.20 marka.

SASE’s index tracking investment funds, the BIFX, went down 1.15% from last Friday to 2,231.94 points.

“Our investment funds industry is in deep crisis,” Mladjen said.

Turnover on the Banja Luka Stock Exchange (BLSE) skyrocketed to 46.72 million marka this week from 2.11 million marka last week. The main indices continued to drop.

The BLSE benchmark BIRS index fell 4.05% from last Friday to 989.36 points. The BLSE investment fund index FIRS dropped by a weekly 3.12% to 1,613.43 points.

Telekom Srpske was the most traded stock on the BLSE's official market with a turnover of 147,849 marka and an average weighted price of 0.94 marka on Friday, down 2.89% from a week ago.

Invest Nova Fond had the highest turnover of 520,259 marka among investment funds this week, with an average weighted price of 0.10 marka on Friday, up 2.13% from a week earlier. Invest Nova Fond  also was the biggest gainer among funds in Banja Luka.

The most liquid stock on the BLSE free market was that of Bosnia’s sole oil refinery, Rafinerija Nafte Bosanski Brod. Turnover in Brod was 111,243 marka, slumping down by a weekly 26.87% on Friday to 0.20 marka.

(1 euro = 1.95583 Bosnian marka)