September 21 (SeeNews) - The share indices of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, mostly lost ground on Monday in lower volumes dominated by banking stocks as investors moved to the sidelines, brokers said.
The blue-chip BET index of the BVB fell 0.52% to 4,320.68 points, while the BET-FI, which tracks the country's five regional investment funds, the SIFs, dropped 2.0% to 24,369.35 points.
The composite BET-C index shed 0.64% to 2,552.07 and the ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, lost 0.95% to 9,131.15.
“Trading volumes were low, and price corrections unfolded as investors mainly opted to sit back and keep an eye on the global markets, which were not doing great during the day,” one broker told SeeNews.
BVB's turnover fell to 23.8 million lei ($8.2 million/5.6 million euro), including 8.6 million lei worth of bonds, from 37 million lei on Friday. The number of traded shares, however, increased to 61.5 million from 55.8 million on Friday.
Blue-chip lender Banca Transilvania closed unchanged at 1.58 lei in the day's largest turnover of 3.1 million lei. Banca Carpatica sank 4.67% to 0.102 lei on deals worth 2.9 million lei, Monday’s second largest turnover. Blue-chip bank BRD slid 1.59% to 12.4 lei in 1.4 million lei turnover.
“With regard to the SIFs, investors are looking to see what’s going to happen with the ownership ceiling,” the broker said.
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 Senate’s legal commission is due to discuss the issue on Tuesday, the broker added. 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 fell 1.6% to 1.23 lei in a 1.97 million lei turnover, the session’s third largest turnover. SIF 2 Moldova depreciated by 2.63% to 1.11 lei in a turnover of 1.0 million lei, while SIF 4 Muntenia declined 1.32% to 0.745 lei in deals worth 646,000 lei.
SIF 3 Transilvania was down by 2.03% to 0.725 lei in deals worth 599,000 lei, and SIF 1 Banat Crisana dipped 2.48% to 1.18 lei in deals worth 566,000 lei.
Blue-chip oil and gas group Petrom lost 2.29% to 0.256 lei in 482,000 lei turnover, while blue-chip oil refinery Rompetrol Rafinare climbed 3.1% to 0.0565 lei in 579,000 lei turnover.
The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, was down 1.19% to 434.82 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, advanced 0.23% to 567.21 points.
Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, edged up 0.02% to 2,144.48. Turnover on the RASDAQ halved to 932,000 lei from 1.8 million lei on Friday.
(1 euro = 4.2684 Romanian lei)
Rompetrol Rafinare SA is among the biggest companies in SEE, for more reference take a look at
Top 100 companies