Serbian Blue-Chip Index Soars 7.0%, Further Rise Seen Until Year's End

“The year's end is coming and many companies, especially banks, are trying to make something positive for their financial balance,” a local broker told SeeNews.

“I think the indices will continue ending higher in the sessions remaining until the end of the year, though probably not as much as today,” the broker added.

The blue-chip BELEX15 index closed up 6.95% at 527.68 points after adding 3.27% on Wednesday. Since the beginning of the year, however, the global financial crisis has knocked some 77% off the benchmark index.

Univerzal Banka recorded the highest price surge of 18.86% for the day, closing at 10,640 dinars ($169/121 euro) in 14 million dinars of turnover, the highest one among the blue chips. Blue chip Komercijalna Banka had the second highest price rise on the BELEX, of 17.27%, to 25,800 dinars.

The composite BELEX line index gained 4.05% to 1,144.82 points, while the joint SRX index of the bourses in Belgrade and Vienna climbed 8.36% to 256.99.

Total BELEX turnover halved to 134 million dinars from 265 million dinars on Wednesday.

Construction firm Ratko Mitrovic closed flat at 780 dinars in the day's largest turnover of 38 million dinars.

On Thursday, gainers outnumbered fallers by 33 to 17, while 29 stocks remained unchanged.

(1 euro = 88.2984 dinars)