Romanian Stocks Rise Modestly in Lower Turnover

The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, gained 1.62% to 2,888.19. The BET-FI index, which tracks Romania's five regional investment funds, SIFs, added 1.58% to 11,114.80 points.

The composite BET-C index rose 2.4% to 2,190.64. The ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, was up by 3.9% to 6,841.89.

"The gains [from the previous two sessions] continued today, but at the end of trading there was more selling pressure, which could reverse the falls in early trading tomorrow. But it also depends on how the U.S. market will perform today," one broker told SeeNews.

Stock markets in Europe and Asia closed mostly up on Thursday when it was reported that U.S. economic activity in the third quarter fell by a smaller-than-expected 0.3%. Wall Street opened higher on Thursday.

“Overall the trend remains negative,” the broker said.

BVB's turnover decreased to 20.3 million lei ($7.2 million/5.6 million euro) from 24.1 million lei on Wednesday. The number of shares traded on Thursday fell to 84.7 million from 100.2 million on Wednesday.

Blue-chip oil and gas group Petrom shed 0.6% to 0.167 lei in the day’s highest turnover of 4.5 million lei. “It ended very close to the day's lowest price level [of 0.165 lei]. After two days of gains investors decided to book profits.”

SIF 3 Transilvania fell by 1.47% to 0.268 lei in the day’s second highest turnover of 3.0 million lei on Thursday. Blue-chip bank BRD jumped by 4.2% to 7.45 lei in the day's third largest turnover of 2.6 million lei.

Austria’s Erste bank, the first foreign stock traded on the BVB, soared by 14.87% to 75.7 lei on deals worth 620,600 lei. It reported earlier on Thursday its net profit after minority interests grew by 74.6% on the year to 1.5 billion euro ($1.9 billion) in the first nine months of 2008.

Blue-chip power grid operator Transelectrica advanced by 9.17% to 13.1 lei on deals worth a total of 531,000 lei.

Romania’s largest fertiliser maker, Azomures, ended 14.72% higher at 0.226 lei in a turnover of 237,000 lei. Its peer Amonil gained 14.8% to 0.0225 lei in 80,000 turnover. “The price of both stocks has fallen very low. The gains now are because of expectations of good nine-month results,” the broker added.

Both companies will announce their nine-month results on November 14.

The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid blue-chip companies, including the SIFs, rose by 1.48% to 269.41 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, advance by 2.59% to 359.17.

Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the RASDAQ over-the-counter market, edged up 0.03% to 2,434.49. Turnover on RASDAQ fell to 966,000 lei from 2.4 million lei on Wednesday.

(1 euro = 3.6438 Romanian lei)