Romanian Stocks Extend Gains, Petrom Paces Rally

The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, gained 3.98% to 2,842.20. The BET-FI index, which tracks Romania's five regional investment funds, SIFs, added 1.74% to 10,941.96 points.

The composite BET-C index rose 4.53% to 2,139.26. The ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, was up by 4.31% to 6,585.35.

"It was a second day of recovery. Important stocks remained without sellers both yesterday and today, I mean Petrom, for example, but these gains came after several days of panic selling which brought prices down," one broker told SeeNews.

Blue-chip oil and gas group Petrom soared 13.51% to 0.168 lei in the day’s highest turnover of 3.64 million lei. "Petrom’s stock has recently lost a lot of value because of the steep fall in global oil prices."

BVB's turnover rose to 24.1 million lei ($8.5 million/6.6 million euro) from 22.3 million lei on Tuesday. The number of shares traded on Wednesday rose to 100.2 million from 94.4 million on Tuesday.

SIF 5 Oltenia gained 4.63% to 0.565 lei in the day’s second highest turnover of 3.6 million lei on Wednesday. SIF 3 Transilvania closed unchanged at 0.272 lei in the day's third largest turnover of 3.3 million lei.

"The SIFs are the stocks most affected by the global liquidity crisis, they have vey high price volatility, and one of the key reasons is the total lack of confidence," the broker said.

Blue-chip bank BRD gained 3.62% to 7.15 lei in deals worth 3.2 million lei. Austria’s Erste bank jumped by 5.44% to 65.9 lei on deals worth 491,000 lei, and blue-chip power grid operator Transelectrica rose by 3.45% to 12.0 lei on deals worth a total of 450,000 lei.

Romania’s largest fertiliser maker, Azomures, ended 14.53% higher at 0.197 lei in a turnover of 169,000 lei.

"The U.S. Fed is expected to announce today if it will change its interest rate, something which will have a big impact on the capital markets. It's very likely we will see some price stagnation or downward correction," the broker said.

Stock markets in Europe and Asia rose steadily on Wednesday while the U.S. market opened mixed.

Global markets rebounded on Tuesday on some positive financial results and on bailout plans drafted by central banks worldwide. Stock indices around the globe had been falling heavily on concerns over the health of the world’s largest economies.

The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid blue-chip companies, including the SIFs, rose by 3.29% to 265.47 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, jumped by 6.35% to 350.11.

Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the RASDAQ over-the-counter market, added 1.83% to 2,433.82. Turnover on RASDAQ doubled to 2.4 million lei on Wednesday.

(1 euro = 3.6435 Romanian lei)