BUCHAREST (Romania), September 12 (SeeNews) – Three of the four share indices of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) gained on Wednesday, tracking major European markets, brokers said.
"As European markets ended higher, the [Romanian] indices tried to go in line with the trend and almost succeeded," one broker told SeeNews.
The BVB's blue-chip BET index ended up 0.29% to 9,953.2 points, while the composite BET-C index rose 0.26% to 6,809.18. The ROTX index of Romania's nine most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, edged up 0.40% to 21,955.38.
The BET-FI index, which only tracks Romania's five regionally-defined investment funds, the SIFs, was the only loser among the four indices, edging down 0.25% to 79,696.82 points.
BVB turnover rose to 31.5 million lei ($13.2 million/9.5 million euro) from Tuesday's 28.3 million
"Liquidity was low, investors remain cautious and wait for a better moment to enter the market," a broker said.
Foreign investors, who account for more than 80% of the investors operating on the BVB, have been standing on the sidelines following recent problems in the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market and waiting for September 18 when the Federal Reserve will discuss its key reference rate.
Blue-chip Banca Transilvania was the most traded stock, closing flat at 0.89 lei in turnover of 4.78 million lei. Shares in SIF5 Oltenia lost 0.46% to 4.31 lei in the second largest turnover of 3.12 million lei.
Aluminium products maker Altur came third in terms of turnover, ending flat at 0.16 lei in 2.73 million lei of turnover. Altur was among the five most traded stocks on Wednesday as one of its shareholders, investment fund SIF 5 Oltenia, sold 15.7 million shares, or a 5.87% stake in the company, for 2.5 million lei, decreasing its holdings to 12.23%. Last week SIF 5 Oltenia sold 3.6% of Altur.
The other blue-chip bank, BRD, ended 1.1% higher at 27.6 lei in turnover of 1.7 million lei. Blue-chip oil group Petrom gained 1.0% to 0.5 lei in turnover of 1.04 million lei. Blue-chip Rompetrol Rafinare closed down 4.0% to 0.12 lei in 1.04 million lei turnover.
"After some 75% of Rompetrol Group was sold [at the end of August], Rompetrol Rafinare's price rose to 0.12 lei, the level at which it closed today, and basically that's the right price at the moment. I don't expect it to vary too much," broker said.
The Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the RASDAQ over-the-counter market, fell 1.55% to 5,476.38. Turnover on the RASDAQ fell to 9.9 million lei from 19.3 million lei on Tuesday.
(1 euro=3.3179 Romanian lei)