December 3 (SeeNews) - Croatian share indices fell on Monday in thin turnover amid political uncertainty following general elections last month and an absence of institutional investors, traders said.
“As the end of the year draws near, the market is not interesting right now. Investment funds tend to keep the returns that they have achieved since the beginning of the year, and still some instability is present after the elections,” Darko Susec, a stockbroker with Abacus Brokeri, told SeeNews.
The outgoing ruling conservative HDZ party has a slight edge over the main opposition party, the Social Democrats, after Croatia’s parliamentary elections on November 25, partial results indicate. Each of the two main contenders seeks to enter a coalition with smaller parties to form a cabinet.
The 30-share Crobex index of the Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE) closed at 4,641.36, down 0.35%. The Croemi 20-share index, calculated by commercial bank Raiffeisenbank Austria, fell 0.34% to end at 3,800.69. Each of them has gained some 41% since the beginning of the year. The narrowest CROX index of the seven most traded stocks on the ZSE, which the Vienna Stock Exchange launched this summer, was down 0.21% to 2,458.85 in euro terms.
Turnover dropped to only 38.8 million kuna ($7.8 million/5.3 million euro) from 48.6 million on Friday, far below usual levels of some 100 million kuna a day earlier this year.
Oil and gas company INA, an index heavyweight, fell 1.61% to 2,449.99 kuna on the biggest daily turnover of 5.2 million kuna. Shares of telecommunications group T-HT finished at 336.05 kuna, down 0.61%, on 5.1 million kuna of turnover.
Blue-chip shipping company Atlantska Plovidba’s shares rose 2.00% to 3,161 kuna on 2.7 million kuna of turnover.
Overall losing shares outnumbered gainers by 51 to 36 and 16 shares remained unchanged.
The fixed-income Crobis index ended at 107.82, up from 96.08 points on Friday.
(1 euro=7.3355 Croatian kuna)