SOFIA (Bulgaria), September 17 (SeeNews) – Plenty of free cash on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) lifted the stock indices to new highs on Monday, brokers said.
“There is much money on the market and shortage of new companies,” Severin Vartigov, a portfolio manager at Benchmark Finance, told SeeNews.
The stock exchange in Sofia has attracted a large number of foreign investors since January 1, when the country joined the EU. Several companies like road construction company Trace Group Hold and domestically-owned bank Investbank are expected to go public by the end of the year.
Vartigov said demand was likely to keep pushing indices higher in the upcoming week.
On Monday 90 shares closed higher, 40 lost ground and 14 ended flat.
Gains in paint and varnish producer Orgachim, industrial conglomerate Chimimport, car battery maker MonBat and cast iron foundry Tchugunoleene helped the indices rise on Monday, he added.
Orgachim extended recent gains by adding 2.8% to a close of 545 levs in a volume of 550 shares, while Tchugunoleene shares rose 6.0% to 44.5 levs with some 1,000 shares changing hands. Shares in Chimimport closed at 15.27 levs, up 0.1% in a volume of some 71,800 shares. MonBat closed 3.0% higher at 23.7 levs in a volume of about 8,300 shares.
BSE's BG TotalReturn30 (BG TR30) index, including companies with a free float of at least 10% having equal weights in the index, gained 0.89% to 1,054.83 points.
The BG-REIT index tracking the performance of real estate investment trusts traded on the stock exchange, added 0.11% to 100.17 points.
The Dnevnik 20 index, calculated by local business daily Dnevnik from the share prices of the 20 leading companies in terms of liquidity and market capitalisation, rose 1.12% to 259.21 points.
The BSE's total turnover rose to 11.7 million levs ($8.3 million/6.0 million euro) from 5.6 million levs on Saturday.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)