Croatian Equity Indices Extend Losses As Fear Grips Mkt

"People are scared and there is no demand for shares. It seemed to me that our market was waiting to see how the U.S. market would open and when it opened the Croatian market reduced its intraday losses," Neven Salamon, an equity analyst with consultancy Fima Fas told SeeNews.

The 28-share CROBEX index dropped 4.12% to 2,662.68 points, its lowest level since mid-June. That follows its sharpest drop in five years, 6.40%, on Monday.  

The CROEMI 20-share index, calculated by Raiffeisenbank Austria, lost 2.89% to 2,383.60.

The narrowest index, CROX, which tracks the 12 most traded stocks on the Zagreb market and is calculated by the Vienna bourse, pared 3.85% in euro terms to 1,594.98.

Telecommunications company T-HT attracted the biggest daily turnover, 20.6 million kuna,  falling 1.25% to its all-time low close, 240.01 kuna.

Shipping company Atlantska Plovidba declined 6.3% to 1,590 kuna on 11.9 million kuna of turnover. The other shipping companies and Crobex members,  Uljanik Plovidba, Tankerska Plovidba and Jadroplov, also recorded hefty losses, 8.86%  4.23%, and 2.86%, although in lower volumes. The shipping sector has fallen more than the CROBEX since the beginning of this year, along with a plunge of the Baltic Dry Index tracking world freight rates for dry cargo vessels.    

Shares of civil engineering company IGH dropped 2.3% to 7,550 kuna on relatively high turnover, 10.7 million kuna.
Another blue-chip, telecoms equipment Ericsson Nikola Tesla shed 3.71% to 1,661 kuna on 10.3 million kuna of turnover.

Power transmission equipment producer Dalekovod was the single gainer among stocks  with more than one million kuna turnover. It added 0.31% to 660 kuna.  

Turnover in floor trading rose to 96.9 million kuna ($18.6 million/13.6 million euro) from 62.2 million kuna on Monday.
Wednesday is Independence Day, a public and market holiday in Croatia. The next trading day is Thursday when also opens the annual conference of the Zagreb bourse in Novigrad, on the northern Croatian Adriatic coast.

The fixed-income Crobis index added 0.01% to 96.06 points.

(1 euro = 7.1360 Croatian kuna)