Romanian Stock Indices Tumble, Mirror Global Weakness

The BET-FI index, which tracks the country’s five regional investment funds, the SIFs, dropped 4.42% to 20,391.71 points. The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, closed down 4.97% at 3,972.59 points.

The composite BET-C index tumbled 4.67% to 2,399.89. The ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, slumped 5.06% to 8,309.08.

“The correction was sharp, but not unexpected as we have been on an upward path for several weeks now. Judging by what the U.S. futures are indicating, I think our market may open lower tomorrow,” one broker told SeeNews.

BVB’s turnover fell to 30.5 million lei ($10.2 million/7.2 million euro) on Monday from 40.6 million lei turnover on Friday. The number of traded shares decreased to 55.2 million from 88.6 million on Friday.

SIF 5 Oltenia ended 5.22% lower at 1.09 lei in Monday’s largest turnover of 8.8 million lei. SIF 2 Moldova ended 5.7% down at 0.91 lei on deals worth 6.3 million lei, the session's second highest turnover. Blue-chip bank BRD dipped 5.93% to 11.1 lei in the day’s third largest turnover of 3.2 million lei.

SIF 3 Transilvania ended down 4.27% at 0.56 lei in 2.6 million lei turnover, while SIF 1 Banat Crisana was 3.92% lower at 0.98 lei in 812,000 lei turnover. SIF 4 Muntenia also fell 2.94% to 0.66 lei in 1.7 million lei turnover.

The bourse's other blue-chip lender, Banca Transilvania, declined 4.32% at 1.33 lei in deals worth 1.2 million lei. Banca Carpatica dropped 5.31% to 0.107 lei in 578,000 lei turnover.

Blue-chip brokerage SSIF Broker sank 9.46% to 0.201 lei on deals worth 1.0 million lei, and blue-chip drug maker Biofarm depreciated 6.88% to 0.23 lei in 675,000 lei turnover

The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, lost 4.83% to 387.33 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, slid 4.0% to 532.27 points.

Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, shed 0.34% to 2,118.14. Turnover on the RASDAQ decreased to 1.05 million lei from 1.5 million lei on Friday.

(1 euro = 4.2225 Romanian lei)