Bucharest Stock Indices Slip, Bonds Lift Turnover

The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, fell 0.64% to 4,639.70 points. The BET-FI index, which tracks the country's five regional investment funds, the SIFs, lost 1.14% to 23,357.22 points.

The composite BET-C index shed 1.2% to 2,803.17 and the ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, declined 0.6% to 9,804.95.

BVB's turnover rose to 49.75 million lei ($17.3 million/11.6 million euro) from 31.9 million lei on Tuesday, thanks to bond trading worth 38 million lei. The number of traded shares decreased to 21 million compared to 31.9 million on Tuesday.

SIF 5 Oltenia ended down 1.68% at 1.17 lei in the day's largest turnover of 2.8 million lei. Blue-chip bank BRD closed unchanged at 12.9 lei on deals worth 2.3 million lei, Wednesday’s second largest turnover, while its blue-chip peer Banca Transilvania depreciated by 0.55% to 1.8 lei in the session’s third largest turnover of 1.5 million lei.

SIF 2 Moldova fell 1.87% to 1.05 lei in 1.0 million lei turnover. Austria's Erste Bank ticked 0.08% lower to 130 lei in deals worth 443,000 lei.

Blue-chip oil and gas company Dafora slid 1.75% to 0.112 lei in 439,000 lei turnover, while blue-chip oil and gas group OMV Petrom dipped 1.75% to 0.28 lei on deals worth 749,000 lei. Blue-chip gas transmission company Transgaz lost 0.95% to 156 lei in 219,000 lei turnover.

The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, slid 1.02% to 457.79 points.

The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, was down 0.64% to 617.96 points.

Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, edged down 0.23% to 2,238.25. Turnover on the RASDAQ fell to 1.3 million lei from 2.5 million lei on Tuesday.

(1 euro = 4.2909 Romanian lei)