September 11 (SeeNews) - Croatian stocks continued sliding on Tuesday in lower turnover, while the shares of the operators of the country’s two main Adriatic ports shone in lively trading, brokers said.
The Zagreb Stock Exchange's (ZSE) 30-share Crobex index dipped 0.57% to end at 4,691.7 points. The 20-share Croemi index, calculated by commercial bank Raiffeisenbank Austria, was down by 0.7% and finished at 3,867.56.The CROX capitalisation-weighted price index of the seven most traded stocks on the ZSE, which the Vienna Stock Exchange launched earlier this summer, lost 1.85% to close at 2,652.83 points in euro terms.
Shipping company Uljanik Plovidba, a blue-chip index constituent, was the top volume issue on Tuesday, managing a turnover of 6.5 million kuna. Its stock ended unchanged from Monday at 4,000 kuna.
Some of the most liquid stocks among blue chips continued falling on Tuesday.
Oil and gas company INA, an index heavyweight, lost 0.38% to a closing level of 2,620 kuna on 4.7 million kuna turnover. Preference shares of tobacco-to-tourism group Adris fell by 1.7% and ended at 520 kuna on almost 3.0 million kuna of turnover.
Shares in another blue chip, telecoms equipment maker Ericsson Nikola Tesla, shed 1.49% to 3,250 kuna 1.7 million kuna of turnover.
Among other blue chips, shares in commercial bank Slatinska Banka, which were the most traded ones on Monday, entered correction and closed at 484 kuna, down 2.22%, on 2.2 million kuna turnover.The stock recorded the highest daily rise on Monday on news that another Croatian bank, Varazdinska Banka (Vaba), has acquired 3.81% in it and two banks planned to team up in strategic partnership.
"The port operators, Luka Ploce and Luka Rijeka, grasped the investors’ attention by jumping as much as 5.4% and 10.0%, respectively," an analyst with Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank said.
"Going forth, we expect Luka Ploce to benefit from the higher-than-planned government investment in the local highway construction (in particular on the Split-Ploce route)," he said.
Meanwhile, a new shipping cargo route through the port of Rijeka should considerably increase the port's throughput by additional 10,000 containers up to altogether 100,000 containers by the end of the year, the analyst added.
Under a government plan over 531 million euro will be invested in the six Croatian ports of national importance from 2006 to 2013, of which around 170 million euro will go for the upgrade of the Rijeka port. Emphasis will be laid on increasing the port's container handling capacity, state secretary for transport at Maritime Affairs, Tourism, Transport and Development Ministry Drazen Breglec said earlier this year.
Maritime Affairs, Transport, Tourism and Development Minister Bozidar Kalmeta held talks earlier on Tuesday with Rijeka mayor and county authorities on major infrastructure projects in the city, but no details of the talks were disclosed.
The turnover of shares and bonds in floor trading on the ZSE fell to 66.9 million kuna ($12.6 million/9.1 million euro) from 91.9 million kuna on Monday.
Overall, decliners outnumbered advancers 75 to 34 to and 18 ended unchanged.
The fixed-income Crobis index edged up by 0.01 % and closed at 98.6482 points.
(1 euro= 7.3236 Croatian kuna)