December 17 (SeeNews) - The blue-chip SOFIX index of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) declined by 0.45% to 619.55 points on Friday, dragged down by financial and insurance group Eurohold [BUL:EUBG] whose shares fell 5.36%, bourse data showed.
As many as 5,510 Eurohold shares traded at an average price of 10.2200 levs on the floor of the Sofia bourse on Friday.
Earlier on Friday, Assen Hristov, head of the supervisory board of CEZ Distribution Bulgaria, which is a majority-owned unit of Eurohold Bulgaria told bTV that the electricity distributors operating in Bulgaria urgently need compensations for the losses they would incur due to the moratorium on hikes of power prices for households imposed by parliament on December 16. CEZ Distribution Bulgaria has already recorded 70 million levs in losses, he said, adding that if the state does not find a mechanism to compensate the energy distribution companies within next week, it will be too late in January.
A 7.69% rise in the shares of fertiliser producer Neochim [BUL:NEOH] backed the BGBX40 index, which tracks the 40 most traded shares on the Sofia bourse and the BGTR30 index, in which companies with a free float of at least 10% have equal weight. The BGBX40 went up 0.25% to 140.37 points, while the BGTR30 advanced by 0.63% to 670.74 points.
The BGREIT index, which tracks seven real estate investment trusts, closed 0.07% higher at 162.79 points, on the back of a 0.35% rise in the share price of Advance Terrafund REIT [BUL:ATER].
Total turnover on the BSE's main market rose to 4.6 million levs ($2.6 million/2.3 million euro) from 3.5 million levs on Thursday.
The most-traded company on Friday was National Investment Fund Dynamic [BUL:DYN]. As many as 152,500 shares in the fund traded flat at an average price of 10.2200 levs, generating 1.6 million levs of the turnover for the day.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)