“Trading today was in small volumes, 1.5 million euro, [resulting] in an insignificant [price] drop,” the head of Belgrade-based Confidence brokerage, Igor Pacanoski, told SeeNews. “It [the blue-chip index] was up during the day but fell in the last half hour of trading.”
The blue-chip BELEX15 index fell 1.83% at 800.16 points on Monday, following a 1.93% climb on Friday and a gain of 12.33% through the whole of last week. BELEX15 has lost some 65% since the beginning of the year.
The composite BELEXline index on Monday slipped 0.65%, reaching 1,615.84 points, after it added 0.97% on Friday. The joint SRX index of the bourses in Belgrade and Vienna advanced 0.59% to 416.54.
Total turnover on the BELEX almost halved to 122 million dinars ($2.0 million/1.5 million euro) from 235 million on Friday.
“The government has come out with a new market protection plan,” Pacanoski said. “They will cut the tax on capital gains, which at 20% is currently the highest in the region. I think it will have a strong impact if private investors are to return to the market.”
Serbia will raise the guarantee for depositors in local banks to 50,000 euro from the current 3,000 euro and will scrap capital gains tax next year in a bid to boost the county’s economy affected by the global financial crisis, Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic announced earlier on Monday.
On BELEX, retail chain Pekabeta posted the day's highest turnover of some 12 million dinars in a single transaction, closing flat at 2,400 dinars.
“It was probably a transaction among the current shareholders of Pekabeta,” Pacanoski said.
Serbia's largest retailer Delta Maxi, owned by Delta Holding, holds a 68% stake in Pekabeta, the state’s Share Fund holds a 14.3% stake, while the remaining shareholders hold stakes of less than two percent each.
Blue-chip Komercijalna Banka shed 3.88% to 34,980 dinars in 10.8 million dinars of turnover, the second highest for the day.
(1 euro = 81.2818 dinars)
