Romanian Stocks End Mostly Down, Track U.S. Futures

After closing up on Monday, the blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, shed 0.28% to 2,938.34 and the BET-FI index, which tracks Romania's five regional investment funds, the SIFs, lost 0.62% to 14,708.69 points.

The composite BET-C index closed down 0.31% at 2,121.73. The ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, was the only index to end higher, adding 0.37% to 6,744.25.

”The [Romanian bourse] indices were following pretty close the U.S. futures, which moved lower before the U.S. market opened on Tuesday. These days the market trades more on rumours, and less on news,” one broker told SeeNews.

BVB's turnover fell to 8.3 million lei ($2.7 million/2.1 million euro) from 11.8 million lei on Monday. The number of shares traded on Tuesday increased to 51.2 million from 24.2 million on Monday.

“It’s a good time for delisting, when prices are really low, and it’s the right time for listed companies to decide what’s good for them and those who have nothing to offer, or we have nothing to offer to them, may opt to delist,” the broker added.

SIF 5 Oltenia closed 0.71% down at 0.7 lei in the day’s highest turnover of 1.8 million lei. Blue-chip oil and gas group Petrom ended 0.55% higher at 0.183 lei in the day’s second largest turnover of 1.2 million lei. SIF 2 Moldova lost 0.74% to 0.67 lei in the day’s third largest turnover of 1.1 million lei.

Blue-chip bank BRD fell 1.23% to 8.0 lei in deals worth 217,000 lei, and Austria’s Erste bank, the first foreign stock traded on the BVB, appreciated by 3.21% to 64.4 lei in deals worth 271,000 lei.

Blue-chip power grid operator Transelectrica closed unchanged at 12.2 lei in 202,000 lei turnover. SIF 4 Muntenia was the only non-faller among the SIFs on Tuesday, ending unchanged at 0.67 lei in deals worth 521,000 lei.

The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid blue-chip companies, including the SIFs, fell 0.42% to 292.26 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, was down 0.23% to 357.88.

Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the RASDAQ over-the-counter market, lost 0.5% to 2,130.69. Turnover on RASDAQ decreased to 898,000 lei from 1.2 million lei on Monday.

(1 euro = 3.8831 Romanian lei)