Romanian Stocks Fall Further on Global Slump

”It was a calm session, tracking foreign markets that reacted negatively to the collapse of the rescue plan for the auto industry,” one broker told SeeNews.

Global stock exchanges slumped on Friday after the U.S. Senate rejected a $14 billion (18.7 billion euro) bailout for the U.S. auto industry.

The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, shed 0.81% to 2,875.44 and the BET-FI index, which tracks Romania's five regional investment funds, the SIFs, fell 4.47% to 13,325.28 points.

The composite BET-C index closed down 1.38% at 2,054.02. The ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, fell 1.33% to 6,604.35.

“Liquidity remained weak, maybe a bit higher as falls in share prices drew investor interest and also because more bonds were traded,” the broker said.

BVB's turnover increased slightly to 11.13 million lei ($3.8 million/2.8 million euro), including 4.8 million lei worth of International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, from 9.1 million lei on Thursday. The number of shares traded on Friday rose to 32.86 million from 20 million on Thursday.

Blue-chip bank BRD closed 1.90% down at 7.75 lei in the day’s highest turnover of 1.3 million lei. SIF 5 Oltenia lost 6.11% to 0.615 lei in the day’s second largest turnover of 814,430 lei. Blue-chip oil and gas group Petrom ended 2.19% higher at 0.187 lei in the day’s third largest turnover of 633,787 lei. SIF 1 Banat-Crisana ended 4.80% lower at 0.595 lei of 628,869 lei.

Austria’s Erste bank, the first foreign stock traded on the BVB, depreciated by 5.30% to 60.7 lei in deals worth 250,879 lei.

Shares of Romanian water metres manufacturer Contor Group made their debut on the BVB on Friday. “The stock was not traded in any significant volumes and you could clearly see investors lacked appetite for the new-comer.”

There is reluctance to invest in equities as no business is seen as a safe bet and this attitude indicates no major changes should be expected on the bourse by the end of the year, he said.

The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid blue-chip companies, including the SIFs, fell 1.72% to 280.80 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, lost 1.52% to 344.30.

Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the RASDAQ over-the-counter market, lost 0.18% to 2,117.98. Turnover on RASDAQ rose to four million lei from 741,300 on Thursday after Italian company Effeemmeci raised its stake in Romanian textile firm Siderma by five percent in a deal worth of 1.9 million lei.

(1 euro = 3.9123 Romanian lei)