October 11 (SeeNews) - The Crobex share index of the Zagreb Stock Exchange finished lower on Thursday after hitting all-time highs in the previous two sessions following the dazzling market debut of telecommunications group T-HT, brokers said.
"The local benchmark dipped only marginally as weakness in [oil and gas company] INA cancelled out gains in second-liners. The latter have performed strongly thanks to fresh money on the market as overpaid cash from the T-HT initial public offering (IPO) returns to investors," an analyst with Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank said.
The 30-share Crobex dropped 0.17% to 5,264.1.
T-HT's IPO attracted unexpectedly strong interest, both from individuals and institutional investors and was more than seven times oversubscribed. In search of easy profits, every 13th Croat has subscribed for shares of the IPO, for many their first experience in trading shares.
The telecom, which debuted on the bourses in Zagreb and London last Friday, continued to be the most traded stock on Thursday. T-HT shares gained 3.23% and closed at 385 kuna, attracting a turnover of 75.4 million kuna, compared to the 265 kuna per share IPO price.
As expected by analysts, trading volumes have grown as some of the excess funds destined for T-HT flow back to the market, and go mostly to the other blue-chips like shipping companies and construction firms.
Turnover in shares and bonds in floor trading grew to 270.8 million kuna ($52.6 million/37 million euro), from 167.9 million kuna a day earlier.
Shares in blue-chip constituent INA lost 0.89% to close at 2,800 kuna on 4.2 million kuna turnover.
In other trade, holding company Djuro Djakovic Holding, jumped by 15.33% to close at 244.5 kuna on some 4.0 million turnover.
The holding's subsidiary, Djuro Djakovic Specijalna Vozila, is involved in a 112 million euro deal with Finnish defence equipment producer Patria for the delivery of 84 armoured vehicles to the Croatian Army.
Patria won the deal in August and the contract was officially signed on Thursday.
The 20-share Croemi index, calculated by commercial bank Raiffeisenbank Austria, added 1.45% to 4,357.19 points. Investors who bet on Crobex or Croemi have gained more than 60% since the beginning of the year.
The CROX index of the seven most traded stocks on the ZSE, which the Vienna Stock Exchange launched this summer, was up 1.12% to end at 2,862.17 points in euro terms.
Overall, gainers outnumbered losers by 61 to 56 and 25 shares ended unchanged.
The fixed-income Crobis index shed 0.34% to 97.9751 points.
(1 euro= 7.3215 Croatian kuna)