October 1 (SeeNews) - Romanian shares gained ground on Monday, extending Friday’s gains in thin volume, as investors waited for the result of a no-confidence vote on Romania's minority government on Wednesday, brokers said.
“Investors are awaiting the forthcoming vote in parliament, whose outcome could throw the market in one direction or another. But until then rises of 3.0-4.0% on low volumes are nothing else but artificial,” one broker told SeeNews.
The Bucharest Stock Exchange's (BVB) BET-FI index, which tracks the shares of the country's regionally-defined investment funds (SIFs), was the biggest gainer, ending 2.57% higher at 79,881.63 points. The blue-chip BET index closed up 1.25% at 9,755.92, the composite BET-C index added 0.6% to 6,645.86 and the ROTX index of Romania's nine most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, rose 1.01% to 21,439.48.
Last week the opposition Social Democrats (PSD) filed a motion of no-confidence in the Liberal-led minority government of Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu over alleged stalling of economic reforms in Romania, which joined the European Union in January.
SIF 2 Moldova gained 2.0% to 3.57 lei in the highest in turnover of 5.2 million lei, while SIF 5 Oltenia rose 1.62% to 4.39 lei in the second highest turnover of four million lei. SIF 4 Muntenia gained 2.52% to 2.44 lei in the day's third largest turnover of two million lei.
Drug maker Biofarm was the most traded blue chip, closing up 3.95% at 0.92 lei in 1.7 million lei of turnover. “The SIFs have been very active on this share lately. They boosted the price to above 0.90 lei, but the company’s performance is a bit behind the price, so it seems too expensive above this level,” the broker said.
Blue-chip bank BRD lost 0.38% to 26.20 lei in 1.5 million lei of turnover, plus three block deals worth a total of four million lei.
“BRD looks quiet attractive at these low prices. Twenty five lei is a good price to enter buying. The deals from today look like transactions between investment funds,” the broker added.
Fellow blue-chip bank Banca Transilvania added 2.3% to 0.89 lei in turnover of 829,000 lei. Blue-chip oil refiner Rompetrol Rafinare jumped 4.67% to 0.112 lei in a turnover of one million lei.
The BVB's overall volume was 20.8 million shares on turnover of 26.1 million lei ($11.1 million/7.8 million euro), down from Friday’s 47 million lei.
On Friday the BVB introduced futures contracts on its BET-FI index after launching future on its blue-chip BET index in mid-September. No futures contracts traded on the BVB on Monday.
The Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, rose 1.94% to 5,300.09. Turnover on the RASDAQ rose to 10.9 million lei from 8.3 million on Friday, boosted by a block deal for 53,800 shares of Romanian water project manager Socot at a price of 80.00 lei per share. In regular trading Socot’s shares closed down 1.23% at 80.00 lei in 653,000 lei of turnover.
(1 euro = 3.3492 Romanian lei)