BUCHAREST (Romania), November 20 (SeeNews) – Romanian stocks closed mixed in low volumes on Friday, the last business day before the country's presidential elections on Sunday, brokers said.
The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, ticked up 0.27% to 4,844.85 points. The BET-FI, which tracks the country's five regional investment funds, the SIFs, added 1.01% to 22,825.12 points.
The composite BET-C index shed 0.16% to 2,794.81. The ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, slipped 0.22% to 10,107.50.
Romania holds presidential elections on Sunday, in which incumbent head of state Traian Basescu is expected to be pitted in a neck-and-neck race against Social Democrat leader Mircea Geoana and a run-off vote is likely next month, polls indicate.
The elections are seen as an important step towards resolving the ongoing government and political crisis in the EU member, which has been keeping investors away from the capital market.
BVB's turnover rose to 12.7 million lei ($4.4 million/3.0 million euro), including 3.5 million lei worth of trading in bonds, from 6.8 million lei on Thursday. The number of traded shares decreased to 27.5 million from 34.9 million on Thursday.
SIF 5 Oltenia closed 0.84% higher at 1.2 lei in the day's largest turnover of 2.2 million lei. SIF 2 Moldova gained 1.9% to 1.07 lei on deals worth a total of 983,000 lei, Friday’s second highest turnover. Austria’s Erste dropped 2.03% to 125.4 lei on the regular market in the session’s third largest turnover of 677,000 lei.
Blue-chip bank BRD rose 0.74% to 13.7 lei in 475,000 lei turnover, while its blue-chip peer Banca Transilvania inched down 0.47% to 2.12 lei in deals worth 658,000 lei.
SIF 3 Transilvania climbed 1.53% to 0.665 lei in 612,000 lei turnover, while SIF 1 Banat Crisana closed unchanged at 1.08 lei in deals worth 481,000 lei.
Blue-chip oil and gas group OMV Petrom also ended flat at 0.259 lei in 337,500 lei turnover. Blue-chip gas transmission firm Transgaz advanced 1.95% to 157 lei in deals worth 642,000 lei.
The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, ended up 0.22% at 465.76 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, closed 0.65% higher at 618.24 points.
Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, edged up 0.28% to 2,234.61. Turnover on the RASDAQ fell to 568,000 lei from 606,000 lei on Thursday.
(1 euro = 4.2829 Romanian lei)
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