September 10 (SeeNews) - The indices of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, ended mostly in the red on Thursday with the country's five regional investment funds, the SIFs, dominating trading as investors decided to book profits, brokers said.
The blue-chip BET index of the BVB edged down 0.04% to 4,341.56 points, while the BET-FI, which tracks the SIFs, lost 1.79% to 23,699.51 points.
The composite BET-C index declined 0.25% to 2,539.96 and the ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, ticked 0.04% higher to 9,194.84.
"The correction in the SIFs came naturally considering the strong gains in the last five straight sessions which were due to speculations over the ownership ceiling. It was expected that those speculators would want to take profits," one broker told SeeNews.
In June a group of 15 senators submitted a draft bill on the abolishment of the 1.0% ownership ceiling for a single shareholder in the SIFs. In July the legislative council of Romania’s Senate approved the draft. The council is just one of the junior commissions whose approval is needed for the legislative proposal to be voted by the Parliament.
The share prices of the SIFs are very sensitive to any news related to the raising or scrapping of the shareholding cap designed to safeguard the funds from any single investor gaining control.
SIF 5 Oltenia lost 2.44% to 1.2 lei in the day's largest turnover of 8.2 million lei. SIF 3 Transilvania dropped 2.04% to 0.72 lei on deals worth 5.1 million lei, Thursday’s second largest turnover. SIF 2 Moldova ended down 2.7% at 1.08 lei in a 5.0 million lei turnover, the session’s third largest.
SIF 4 Muntenia slid 0.69% to 0.72 lei in turnover of 2.7 million lei, and SIF 1 Banat Crisana dipped 0.88% to 1.12 lei in deals worth 1.9 million lei.
BVB's turnover fell to 31.9 million lei ($10.9 million/7.5 million euro) from 54.1 million lei on Wednesday. The number of traded shares decreased to 54.9 million from 69.3 million on Wednesday.
Blue-chip lender BRD appreciated by 0.79% to 12.7 lei in a turnover of 2.0 million lei, while Banca Transilvania ended 0.63% lower at 1.59 lei in 1.2 million lei turnover. Austria’s Erste Bank rose 0.4% to 126.2 lei in 711,000 turnover.
Blue-chip power grid operator Transelectrica fell 1.55% to 12.7 lei in deals worth 1.1 million lei, while blue-chip oil and gas group Petrom shed 1.12% to 0.264 lei in a 957,000 lei turnover.
The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, shed 0.65% to 432.31 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, added 0.35% to 555.96 points.
Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, edged down 0.18% to 2,107.96. Turnover on the RASDAQ decreased to 639,000 lei from 770,000 lei on Wednesday.
(1 euro = 4.2526 Romanian lei)
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