October 11 (SeeNews) - The Romanian stock market lost ground on Thursday amid higher turnover due to widespread selling, brokers said.
"I think that a foreign investment fund is exiting the [Romanian stock] market. It is selling a lot and the market did not resist. The fall could continue tomorrow as well," one broker told SeeNews. The broker did not disclose the name of the fund.
The Bucharest Stock Exchange's (BVB) blue-chip BET index dropped 1.97% to 10,069.89, while the composite BET-C index lost 1.2% to 7,122.20. The ROTX index of Romania's nine most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, fell 2.22% to 21,976.26. The BET-FI index, which tracks the country’s regionally-defined investment funds (SIFs) closed 1.04% lower at 82,870.45 points in a correction, brokers said.
The BVB's overall volume was 36.3 million shares, down from the 45 million shares exchanged on Wednesday. Its turnover was 64.4 million lei ($27 million/19 million euro), up from 46.4 million on the previous day.
Blue-chip bank BRD was the most traded stock in regular trading, dropping 1.89% to 25.90 lei in the highest turnover, 10.4 million lei. SIF 5 Oltenia lost 1.1% to 4.51 lei in the second highest turnover of 5.4 million lei. SIF 2 Moldova fell 2.18% to 3.59 lei in the day's third largest turnover of 4.9 million lei.
Some 1.6 million shares, equivalent to a 0.2% stake, in aluminium smelter Alro changed hands at 11.30 lei per share in one block deal worth 17.7 million lei. Alro’s share closed up 5.05% at 10.40 lei in regular trading.
Petrochemical group Oltchim dipped 3.38% to 1.43 lei after gaining 34% in the last two days. On Tuesday the company said its shareholders will discuss cancelling a debt-for-equity swap made in 2003 and plans for a new capital increase at an extraordinary shareholders' meeting scheduled for November 15. Details on the size of the possible capital hike were not announced.
Oil refiner Rompetrol Rafinare closed unchanged at 0.124 lei in turnover of one million lei, while blue-chip bank Banca Transilvania ended 1.1% lower at 0.895 lei in 1.5 million lei of turnover. Blue-chip oil and gas group Petrom dropped 3.64% to 0.53 lei in turnover of one million lei. Blue-chip real estate developer Impact Developer and Contractor slumped 6.14% to 1.07 lei in 3.8 million lei of turnover.
The BVB introduced futures contracts on its blue-chip BET index and BET-FI index last month. No futures contracts traded on Thursday and very few have traded so far.
Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, shed 1.42% to 5,367.22. Turnover on the RASDAQ market fell to 22.1 million lei from Wednesday’s 28.5 million.
Drug wholesaler Farmaceutica Remedia was the most traded stock on the RASDAQ on Wednesday, closing up 0.65% at 7.80 lei in a turnover of 12 million lei.
(1 euro = 3.3296 Romanian lei)