BUCHAREST (Romania), December 15 (SeeNews) – Bucharest stock indices closed mostly higher on Tuesday on volatile market where turnover was lifted mainly by two banks and one investment fund, brokers said.
The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, edged up 0.11% to 4,786.07 points.
The BET-FI index, which tracks the country’s five regional investment funds, the SIFs, jumped 2.93% to 24,167.52 points. Buying pressure on the SIFs increased following news that the parliament committee for economic policies, reform and privatisation is expected to endorse draft legislation that would raise the cap on individual shareholding in each of the five funds, one broker told SeeNews.
“It was more of a speculative trading, as this is just one of the steps until the draft gets the nod,” the broker added.
The composite BET-C index ended 0.99% up at 2,760.42. The ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, shed 0.27% to 9,917.09.
BVB's turnover rose to 40.5 million lei ($13.85 million/9.5 million euro) from 24.5 million lei on Monday, boosted by trading in blue-chip banks Banca Transilvania and BRD, and SIF 2 Moldova. Trading in the three stocks generated 14.4 million lei of Tuesday's turnover.
The volume of traded shares edged up to 34.5 million from 34 million on Monday.
SIF 2 Moldova appreciated by 3.57% to 1.16 lei in the day's largest turnover of 7.2 million lei. SIF 5 Oltenia gained 2.38% to 1.29 lei on deals worth a total of 5.5 million lei, Tuesday’s second highest turnover.
SIF 1 Banat Crisana surged 4.46% to 1.17 lei in deals worth 1.5 million lei, while SIF 3 Transilvania closed 2.27% up at 0.675 lei in 2.2 million lei turnover. SIF 4 Muntenia added 2.16% to 0.71 lei in deals worth 703,000 lei.
The cap on individual shareholding in the SIFs, currently set at 1.0%, is projected to rise to 5.0% under the draft legislation now before parliament. The SIFs hold significant stakes in major companies across all sectors of the Romanian economy. The parliament's lower house will have the final say on the draft.
Banca Transilvania ended unchanged at 2.28 lei in the session’s third largest turnover of 4.4 million lei. BRD climbed 3.03% to 13.6 lei in 717,000 lei turnover, while Austria’s Erste dipped 3.4% to 113.5 lei in 927,000 lei turnover.
Blue-chip oil and gas group OMV Petrom ended flat at 0.251 lei in turnover of 477,000 lei.
The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, ended 1.26% higher at 471.74 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, declined 0.97% to 589.31 points.
Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, fell 0.49% to 2,217.82. Turnover on the RASDAQ more than doubled to 3.5 million lei from 1.4 million lei on Monday as 205,000 shares of building projects developer Reco changed hands for a combined 2.4 million lei in three transactions.
(1 euro = 4.2507 Romanian lei)
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