Bucharest Share Indices End Mostly Down, Seen Volatile Over Short Term

Earlier on Tuesday the country's minority cabinet, led by Prime Minister Emil Boc, lost a no-confidence vote sought by the opposition over its performance.

“The stock exchange's reaction after the release of the news was positive, as part of the uncertainty was removed, but in the short-term we expect volatility to remain high,” Raiffeisen Capital & Investment Research said in a note to investors.

President Traian Basescu is now obliged by law to nominate a new head of government. The prime minister-designate will then have 10 days to form a new cabinet and present it to parliament.

The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, shed 0.64% to 4,376.32 points. The BET-FI index, which tracks the country's five regional investment funds, the SIFs, gained 1.11% to 23,353.68 points.

The composite BET-C index fell 0.52% to 2,676.77 and the ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, ticked 0.66% lower to 9,258.99.

BVB's turnover dropped to 20.3 million lei ($7.0 million/4.7 million euro) from 213 million lei on Monday, when some 197 million lei worth of bonds were traded. The number of traded shares increased to 43.1 million compared to 33.4 million on Monday.

SIF 5 Oltenia ended unchanged at 1.17 lei in the day's largest turnover of 5.35 million lei. SIF 2 Moldova climbed 1.9% to 1.07 lei on deals worth 2.6 million lei, Tuesday’s second largest turnover.

Blue-chip bank BRD slid 0.79% to 12.5 lei in the session’s third largest turnover of 1.9 million lei, while its blue-chip peer Banca Transilvania closed unchanged at 1.62 lei in 890,000 lei turnover.

SIF 3 Transilvania was up 0.74% to 0.685 lei in 1.55 million lei turnover, while SIF 1 Banat Crisana rose 1.8% to 1.13 lei in 1.3 million lei turnover. SIF 4 Muntenia advanced by 1.39% to 0.73 lei in deals worth 1.0 million lei.

Blue-chip oil refinery Rompetrol Rafinare backed off 2.91% to 0.0601 lei in 399,000 lei turnover, while blue-chip oil and gas company Dafora gained 1.92% to 0.106 lei in deals worth 457,000 lei.

The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, edged up 0.01% to 439.61 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, lost 1.27% to 586.43 points.

Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, added 0.67% to 2,216.82. Turnover on the RASDAQ halved to 855,000 lei from 1.6 million lei on Monday.

(1 euro = 4.2947 Romanian lei)