March 9 (SeeNews) - Increased investor interest in stocks, the availability of SOFIX-based exchange traded fund (ETF) Expat Bulgaria as well as optimistic 2016 results of leading companies have sustained a recent rise in the benchmark index of the Sofia bourse, the SOFIX, a broker said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the SOFIX closed at 622.47 points, just below the peak of 622.85 it had reached on 3 April 2014, bourse data shows.
"We have observed a positive trend of increasing interest towards shares on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) since the summer of 2016," Blagovest Krachev, a broker at Sofia-based investment firm Karoll told SeeNews by phone on Thursday.
The SOFIX-based ETF Expat Bulgaria will continue to have positive influence on the BSE, Krachev added.
The fund's management company said last month that Expat Bulgaria [BUL:BGX] had received an order on the primary market from an unnamed foreign institutional investor for the issuance of 1 million units of the fund.
Low interest rates on bank deposits and positive financial results of companies included in the blue-chip SOFIX index have also supported interest in stocks traded on the Sofia bourse, Krachev noted.
On Thursday, however, the SOFIX, closed 0.22% lower at 621.08, snapping a five-day winning streak, bourse data showed.
Central Cooperative Bank [BUL:4CF] was the main blue-chip decliner on Thursday, as all indices on the BSE lost ground.
Car battery manufacturer MonBat [BUL:5MB] led the blue-chip gainers on Thursday, bourse data showed. The company's shares closed at 10.751 levs, up 0.48%, as 915 units changed hands.
BSE's total stock trading turnover decreased to 437,900 levs ($237,000/224,214 euro) on Thursday, from 811,240 levs on Wednesday.
The broader BGBX40 index, which tracks the 40 most traded shares on the BSE, decreased by 0.15% to 122.81 points on Thursday, following an increase by 0.25% on Wednesday.
The BG-REIT index, which tracks the performance of the real estate investment trusts, fell 0.04% to 108.57 points, after it added by 0.70% on Wednesday.
The BG TotalReturn30 index, in which companies with a free float of at least 10% have equal weight, fell by 0.27% to 493.55 points. The index closed 0.17% higher on Wednesday.
Industrial conglomerate Chimimport [BUL:6C4] was the most traded blue-chip company on Thursday, as 18,316 of its shares changed hands at an average price of 1.593 levs. The stock closed at 1.583 levs, 1% lower compared to the previous trading session.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)