September 15 (SeeNews) - The indices of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, returned to positive territory on Tuesday as gains on the global markets encouraged investors while the country's five regional investment funds, the SIFs, jumped on speculation, brokers said.
The blue-chip BET index of the BVB added 2.5% to 4,399.01 points, while the BET-FI, which tracks the SIFs, jumped 5.16% to 24,987.79 points.
The composite BET-C index advanced 2.03% to 2,571.38 and the ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, gained 2.37% to 9,240.66.
“The push came from the gains on the foreign markets. As for the SIFs, it’s simply an ongoing speculation over the ownership ceiling. It’s very possible that we may witness a significant correction soon,” 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.
BVB's turnover rose to 29.7 million lei ($7.5 million/5.1 million euro) from 22 million lei on Monday. The number of traded shares decreased to 85 million from 239.6 million on Monday.
SIF 5 Oltenia closed 4.13% higher at 1.26 lei in the day's largest turnover of 6.5 million lei.
SIF 3 Transilvania jumped 4.93% to 0.745 lei on deals worth 3.1 million lei, Tuesday’s second largest turnover. SIF 2 Moldova surged 5.56% to 1.14 lei in a 3.0 million lei turnover, the session’s third largest.
SIF 1 Banat Crisana gained 5.31% to 1.19 lei in turnover of 1.9 million lei, and SIF 4 Muntenia soared 6.16% to 0.775 lei in deals worth 1.5 million lei.
Blue-chip lender BRD appreciated by 3.23% to 12.8 lei in a turnover of 1.7 million lei, while Banca Transilvania was up 2.55% to 1.61 lei in 2.1 million lei turnover.
Blue-chip oil and gas group Petrom picked up 3.94% to 0.264 lei in deals worth 1.9 million lei. Drug maker Zentiva added 0.71% to 0.705 lei in a 1.5 million lei turnover.
The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, was up 3.48% to 443.97 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, rose 2.07% to 569.72 points.
Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, edged up 0.42% to 2,122.08. Turnover on the RASDAQ surged to 2.5 million lei from 289,000 lei on Monday.
(1 euro = 4.2669 Romanian lei)