Bucharest Bourse Indices Close Mixed in Higher Turnover on Volatile Market

The blue-chip BET index of the BVB ticked up 0.03% to 4,400.30 points, while the BET-FI, which tracks the country's five regional investment funds, the SIFs, dipped 2.12% to 24,457.93 points.

The composite BET-C index advanced 0.36% to 2,580.59 and the ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, gained 0.49% to 9,286.27.

“There was quite a lot of profit taking and large trading volumes, which is a sign that investors probably expect further correction in order to return at lower prices. There are chances for correction in the next few sessions,” one broker told SeeNews.

BVB's turnover rose to 46.7 million lei ($16.1 million/11 million euro) from 29.7 million lei on Tuesday. The number of traded shares decreased to 82.9 million from 85 million on Tuesday.

SIF 5 Oltenia closed 2.38% lower at 1.23 lei in the day's largest turnover of 11.7 million lei. SIF 2 Moldova slid 2.63% to 1.11 lei on deals worth 5.7 million lei, Wednesday’s second largest turnover. SIF 3 Transilvania dropped 2.68% to 0.725 lei in a 5.1 million lei turnover, the session’s third largest.

SIF 1 Banat Crisana shed 0.84% to 1.18 lei in turnover of 2.7 million lei, and SIF 4 Muntenia declined 1.94% to 0.76 lei in deals worth 2.4 million lei.

Blue-chip lender BRD appreciated by 0.78% to 12.9 lei in a turnover of 1.8 million lei, while Banca Transilvania ended unchanged at 1.61 lei in 2.5 million lei turnover. Blue-chip brokerage SSIF Broker slid 2.17% to 0.225 lei in 876,000 lei turnover.

Drug maker Zentiva SA closed unchanged at 0.705 lei in 4.6 million lei turnover. Electronics retailer Flamingo International surged 14.77% to 0.0404 lei in deals worth 560,000 lei.

“Some changes happened at Flamingo recently. One of the shareholders, a foreign investment fund, exited the company and they also changed their management board president, so that’s the reason for the jump, I think,” the broker said.

U.S. QVT Fund LP has sold its 22% stake in Flamingo International in a 5.1 million lei deal. The company also named Alexander Adamescu its new president of the management board, replacing Dragos Simon, who stepped down.

The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, was down 0.53% to 441.61 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, shed 0.16% to 568.83 points.

Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, edged up 0.61% to 2,135.00. Turnover on the RASDAQ fell to 2.3 million lei from 2.5 million lei on Tuesday.

(1 euro = 4.2631 Romanian lei)