September 22 (SeeNews) - Romania’s five regional investment funds, the SIFs, were the standout performers on the Bucharest bourse on Tuesday, providing a boost to the share indices and the daily turnover, brokers said.
The BET-FI index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, which tracks the SIFs, jumped 5.63% to 25,742.12 points, while the blue-chip BET index rose 2.51% to 4,429.14 points.
The composite BET-C index gained 2.61% to 2,618.58 and the ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, climbed 2.37% to 9,347.69.
“Liquidity was weak in the first half of the day, before the news about the SIFs’ ownership limit broke. There were much more buying orders afterwards, but as sellers didn't exit the market, we did not witness spectacular gains,” one broker told SeeNews.
Earlier on Tuesday the budget and finance commission of Romania’s Senate proposed raising the ownership limit for a single shareholder in the SIFs to 5.0% from the current 1.0% instead of scrapping it.
In June a group of 15 senators submitted a draft bill on the abolishment of the 1.0% ownership ceiling. In July the Senate’s legislative council approved the draft.
“As it’s only one step closer for the proposal to be voted by the Parliament and eventually take effect, investors are cautious for the time being,” the broker added.
The share prices of the SIFs are very sensitive to any news related to the raising or scrapping of the shareholding cap designed to safeguard the funds from any single investor gaining control.
SIF 5 Oltenia soared 6.5% to 1.31 lei in the day's largest turnover of 9.7 million lei. SIF 2 Moldova surged 6.31% to 1.18 lei on deals worth 6.2 million lei, Tuesday’s second largest turnover. SIF 3 Transilvania jumped 5.52% to 0.765 lei in a 3.3 million lei turnover, the session’s third largest turnover.
SIF 4 Muntenia appreciated by 4.7% to 0.78 lei in a turnover of 2.2 million lei, while SIF 1 Banat Crisana jumped 5.08% to 1.24 lei in deals worth 932,000 lei.
BVB's turnover rose to 38.3 million lei ($13.2 million/9.0 million euro), including 3.5 million lei worth of bonds, from 23.8 million lei on Monday. The number of traded shares increased to 66 million from 61.5 million on Monday.
Blue-chip lender Banca Transilvania added 1.27% to 1.6 lei in 1.8 million lei turnover, while its blue-chip peer BRD gained 3.23% to 12.8 lei in 491,000 lei turnover. Austria’s Erste rose 1.44% to 127 lei in 502,000 lei turnover.
Blue-chip oil and gas group Petrom climbed 3.52% to 0.265 lei in 591,000 lei turnover, while blue-chip oil refinery Rompetrol Rafinare ended 4.42% higher at 0.059 lei in 903,000 lei turnover. Drug maker Zentiva SA was up 1.45% to 0.7 lei in deals worth 762,000 lei.
The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, was up 3.55% to 450.24 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, advanced 2.78% to 582.98 points.
Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, edged down 0.09% to 2,142.49. Turnover on the RASDAQ rose to 2.9 million lei from 1.8 million lei on Monday.
(1 euro = 4.2632 Romanian lei)
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