Petrom, BRD Drive 1% Fall Of Bucharest Bourse

10.18.2013 By Bogdan Neagu

The Bucharest stock exchange closed lower Friday, with the 1.4% declines of both OMV Petrom (SNP.RO) and BRD (BRD.RO) weighing down on the bourse’s main indexes.

BET, which tracks the most-traded 10 stocks in Bucharest, closed down 59.77 points, or 0.99%, to 5,973.22. Petrom closed at 0.436 lei (EUR0.1) per share, 1.38% lower from Thursday closing price, while the shares of BRD ended down 1.41% to RON8.73.

Fondul Proprietatea was down 0.75% at RON0.79 per share, while Banca Transilvania (TLV.RO) and Transgaz (TGN.RO) fell 0.79% and 0.98% respectively.

The bourse’s composite index BET-C was down 33.08 points, or 1.04%, to 3,137.46. Bucharest benchmark index BET-BK fell 0.32%, while the extended blue-chip index, BET-XT, dropped 0.77%.

BET-FI, which tracks Fondul Porprietatea and the five regional investment funds (SIFs), closed at 26,807.56 points, down 132.41 points, or 0.49%. SIF Banat-Crisana (SIF1.RO) and SIF Transilvania (SIF3.RO) were both down 1.5%, but SIF Oltenia (SIF5.RO) rose 1.2%.

Declines of Transgaz, Petrom and Transelectrica (TEL.RO), which was down 1.4%, triggered a 1.51% fall in energy stocks tracker BET-NG.

The traded values improved, with share transfers amounting to RON27.2 million (EUR6.1 million), about 60% higher on the day. Brokers believe the higher traded values and the stock decreases were both caused by investors’ rush to sell in order to gather funds for the Romgaz initial public offering.

The government on Friday approved the price range for the IPO which is due to start Monday. The state could get between RON1.38 billion and RON1.85 billion by selling 15% of the natural gas producer’s shares at prices between RON24 and RON32 per unit. (EUR1=RON4.4514)