February 6 (SeeNews) - The response of the Bucharest bourse to the slump on Wall Street shows that there is no panic among investors but the market remains unpredictable, a Romanian stock broker told SeeNews on Tuesday.
As at 15:00 CET on Tuesday, the blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange [BSE:BVB] has fallen 3.64%, extending its loss from 2.49% in morning trade. The drop followed a sharp drop on Wall Street which sparked a global sell-off.
"I think that the local market has responded in an excellent way given the international context. A drop of only 2%-3% at this hour shows that there is no panic yet among investors. It could have been worse," Simion Tihon, equity trader and analyst at Prime Transaction, told SeeNews in an e-mailed statement.
At the moment, given the voltage in the market, anything can happen, Tihon added. He noted that this is a good time for investors to analyze their portfolio and have a stock/cash ratio according to their own risk profile.
In the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average index plunged 4.60% to close at 24,345 points on Monday on concerns of faster inflation and higher interest rates. Selling spread to Asian and European markets on Tuesday.
"The fall in the U.S. market was a long-awaited event. Everyone wondered when it would happen, not if it would happen," Tihon commented.
"It took a little spark for panic to emerge. Then, I think that the trading algorithms were overwhelmed in the context of excessive volatility with moves of over 500 points in less than a minute."
The broker went on to say that, in his opinion, no clear reason for the drop can be identified, which is good.
"I think we're rather dealing with a correction, which was expected, but which was much more aggressive than anticipated."
As at 15:00 CET, the equity turnover on the Bucharest bourse stood at 60.8 million lei ($16 million/13 million euro). The main transactions were with shares of BRD Societe Generale [BRD] and Banca Transilvania [BSE: TLV] and natural gas producer Romgaz [BSE: SNG], according to bourse data.
(1 euro=4.6423 lei)
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