Investment Funds Lead Bucharest Bourse Higher

The BET-FI index, which tracks the SIFs, jumped 6.92% to 23,144.14 points. Trading in the SIFs accounted for 75% of the total turnover of the Bucharest bourse on Thursday

“Today's gains were a convincing extension to yesterday's gains. Obviously, investors are quite willing and confident to put their money in the SIFs,” one broker told SeeNews. 

On Wednesday, the upper chamber of Romania's parliament raised to 5.0% from 1.0% the cap on individual shareholding in each of the five investment funds, the SIFs. The  cap is designed to safeguard the funds from any single investor gaining control over the SIFs, which hold significant stakes in major companies across all sectors of the Romanian economy. The parliament's lower house will have the final say on the draft legislation regarding the ownership ceiling in the SIFs.

The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, added 0.45% to 4,799.79 points. The composite BET-C index climbed 1.25% to 2,810.35.

The ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, gained 0.36% to 10,146.98.

BVB's turnover increased to 39.1 million lei ($13.6 million/9.1 million euro) from 37.8 million lei on Wednesday. The number of traded shares increased to 61.2 million from 56.7 million on Wednesday.

SIF 5 Oltenia jumped 6.14% to 1.21 lei in the day's largest turnover of 12.1 million lei. SIF 2 Moldova surged 8.54% to 1.08 lei on deals worth a total of 6.6 million lei, Thursday’s second largest turnover. SIF 1 Banat Crisana closed 6.73% higher at 1.11 lei on the regular market in the session’s third largest turnover of 3.8 million lei.

SIF 3 Transilvania soared 7.26% to 0.665 lei in turnover of 3.4 million lei, and SIF 4 Muntenia advanced 6.06% to 0.7 lei in deals worth 3.0 million lei.

Blue-chip bank BRD dipped 0.72% to 13.7 lei in 2.0 million lei turnover, and peer blue-chip Banca Transilvania shed 0.48% to 2.06 lei in 1.4 million lei turnover. Austria’s Erste Bank ended 0.45% up at 132.8 lei in deals worth a total of 1.8 million lei.

Blue-chip oil and gas group OMV Petrom appreciated by 0.38% to 0.263 lei in 1.3 million lei turnover. Blue-chip drug maker Biofarm surged 7.46% to 0.216 lei in deals worth 608,000 lei.
 
The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, gained 2.4% to 466.65 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, was up 0.92% at 612.52 points.

Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, edged up 0.26% to 2,257.05. Turnover on the RASDAQ fell to 960,000 lei from 1.7 million lei on Wednesday.

(1 euro = 4.2979 Romanian lei)