The blue-chip BET index of the BVB lost 1.98% to 4,429.85. The BET-FI index, which tracks the country's five regional investment funds, the SIFs, fell 0.36% to 26,887.66 points.
The composite BET-C index declined 3.08% to 3,326.85. The ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, dropped 2.58% to 10,847.88.
“The falls [on the Romanian bourse] are due to the continuing talks over the U.S. bailout plan and the uncertainty about its adoption. It seems that people are skeptical about it as the U.S. stocks opened lower today,” one broker told SeeNews.
The U.S. government has drafted a plan to spend $700 billion to buy troubled assets held by indebted banks and other institutions. The plan is expected to be voted by the Congress later on Monday.
The European stocks too suffered losses on Monday amid news of European governments stepping in to rescue three European banks.
Romanian stocks have been mostly losing ground lately along with global financial markets in the aftermath of the crisis that hit several U.S. investment banks.
BVB’s turnover fell to 15.2 million lei ($5.9 million/4.1 million euro) from 21 million lei on Friday. The number of shares traded on Monday decreased to 18.9 million from 30.6 million.
Blue-chip bank BRD dropped by 4.8% to 11.9 lei in the day’s highest turnover of 3.6 million lei. “SIF 1 Banat Crisana bought some BRD shares as it has confidence in this stock. The bank’s price is quite attractive if we compare it with the value of its assets,” the broker said.
SIF 5 Oltenia ended unchanged at 1.39 lei in the second-largest turnover of 1.8 million lei. SSIF Broker brokerage gained 3.98% to 0.34 lei in the day's third-largest turnover of 1.3 million lei.
Both SIF 3 Transilvania and SIF 1 Banat Crisana ended unchanged, at 0.7 lei and 1.3 lei, respectively. Austria’s Erste Bank, the first foreign stock traded on the BVB, dropped 3.5% to 138.0 lei in a one million lei turnover.
The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid blue-chip companies, including the SIFs, shed 1.59% to 466.35 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, closed 1.72% down at 630.36.
Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the RASDAQ over-the-counter market, ended 2.51% down to 2,749.02. Turnover on RASDAQ increased slightly to 1.7 million lei from 1.3 million lei on Friday.
(1 euro = 3.6991 Romanian lei)
