Romanian Stocks Slide on Profit Taking, Petrom, Azomures Pace Falls

The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, lost 3.15% to 3,077.02. The BET-FI index, which tracks Romania's five regional investment funds, SIFs, shed 0.31% to 13,094.00 points.

The composite BET-C index closed 2.57% lower at 2,309.86. The ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, was 2.15% down to 7,185.63.

"Investors decided to take profits and obviously Petrom and Azomures suffered most. Unfortunately, we did not take advantage of the gains on Wall Street after the elections [in the U.S.] and shadowed only the falls in Europe," one broker told SeeNews.

Markets in Asia were up on Wednesday, following the surge on the Wall Street overnight, cheering the victory of Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential elections. European markets, however, fell on global economic concerns and negative financial results.

BVB's turnover increased to 35.5 million lei ($12.5 million/9.6 million euro) from 27.1 million lei on Tuesday. The number of shares traded on Wednesday rose to 161.4 million from 136 million on Tuesday.

Petrom dropped 5.0% to 0.19 lei in the day’s highest turnover of 6.7 million lei. Romania’s largest fertiliser maker Azomures slumped 14.37% to 0.292 lei in the day’s second highest turnover of 4.6 million lei. Its peer Amonil ended 14.6% lower at 0.0275 lei in 650,000 turnover.

Azomures and Amonil fell on price correction, the broker said. Both stocks have rallied for seven straight sessions on expectations for a solid financial performance in the January-September period. They will file their earnings reports on November 14.

SIF 5 Oltenia fell 0.74% to 0.675 lei in the day's third largest turnover of 4.1 million lei. SIF 2 Moldova closed unchanged at 0.57 lei in 3.7 million lei turnover, and SIF 4 Muntenia was the only SIF to rise, gaining 2.65% to 0.58 on deals worth 1.9 million lei.

Blue-chip oil refinery Rompetrol Rafinare dropped by 9.78% to 0.0249 lei on 439,000 lei turnover. Blue-chip bank BRD fell 1.86% to 7.9 lei on 3.0 million lei turnover.

The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid blue-chip companies, including the SIFs, fell by 2.08% to 293.32 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, dropped by 5.18% to 398.87.

Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the RASDAQ over-the-counter market, added 0.16% to 2,469.61. Turnover on RASDAQ jumped to 19.5 million lei from 1.6 million lei on Tuesday, as industrial construction materials maker Macon acquired a 17.3% stake in peer Simcor Oradea for 14.8 million lei in a buyout bid.

(1 euro = 3.6797 Romanian lei)