August 19 (SeeNews) - The share indices of the Bucharest Stock Exchange retreated on Wednesday in a correction that may still have legs, brokers said.
The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, closed 2.52% lower at 3,909.66 points. The BET-FI, which tracks the country’s five regional investment funds, the SIFs, dropped the most, shedding 3.48% to 19,659.63 points.
The composite BET-C index fell 2.17% to 2,370.35, and the ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, lost 2.32% to 8,220.82.
“Prices are undergoing a correction and we may possibly see it gather more pace as there is nothing extraodrinary in seeing a pullback following five months of mostly gains. It’s hard to say how big it could be or how long it could last so the best thing to do is be cautious and keep an eye on the market,” one broker told SeeNews.
BVB’s turnover rose to 33 million lei ($11.1 million/7.8 million euro) on Wednesday, including 11.7 million lei worth of bonds, from 13.1 million lei on Tuesday. The number of traded shares increased to 58.4 million from 37.4 million on Tuesday.
SIF 5 Oltenia ended 3.7% lower at 1.04 lei in Wednesday’s largest turnover of 4.7 million lei. SIF 2 Moldova ended 4.4% down at 0.87 lei on deals worth 3.4 million lei, the session's second highest turnover. Blue-chip bank BRD slid 0.89% to 11.1 lei in the day’s third largest turnover of 2.4 million lei.
The other blue-chip lender, Banca Transilvania, declined 2.99% to 1.3 lei in deals worth 1.2 million lei. Erste Bank, the first foreign stock trading on the BVB, lost 3.05% to 111.2 lei in 422,000 lei turnover, and Banca Carpatica ended 0.93% down at 0.107 lei in 540,000 lei turnover.
Blue-chip oil and gas group Petrom fell 1.95% to 0.252 lei on deals worth 979,000 lei, and blue-chip oil refinery Rompetrol Rafinare dropped 4.23% to 0.0475 lei in 968,000 lei turnover.
SIF 3 Transilvania was down 2.68% at 0.545 lei in 1.1 million lei turnover, while SIF 1 Banat Crisana retreated 3.05% to 0.955 lei in deals worth 612,000 lei.
The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, fell 2.67% to 379.65 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, dropped 3.05% to 521.33 points.
Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, shed 0.97% to 2,099.44. Turnover on the RASDAQ slumped to 825,000 lei from 3.4 million lei on Tuesday, when 8.3 million shares of engineering firm Prospectiuni changed hands in 374 regular transactions and one pre-agreed deal for a combined 1.7 million lei.
(1 euro=4.2256 Romanian lei)
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