Romanian Shares Close Down, SIFs Dive

04.14.2011 By Andrei Circhelan

Bucharest-traded shares closed Thursday on a clearly downward path, after some oscillations earlier in the session, while each of the five regional investment funds, or SIFs, lost more than 2.5% on the day.

Bucharest-traded shares closed Thursday on a clearly downward path, after some oscillations earlier in the session, while each of the five regional investment funds, or SIFs, lost more than 2.5% on the day.

The Bucharest Stock Exchange's composite index BET-C dropped 0.71%, to 3,552.67, while the 10-share blue-chip tracker BET fell 0.7%.

BET-FI, the index tracking investment fund Fondul Proprietatea (FP.RO) and the SIFs, fell 2.38% on the day, to 25,961.87. This evolution was mostly enabled by SIF Banat-Crisana (SIF1.

RO), which dropped 3.02% to 1.25 lei (EUR1=RON4.1021) per share and SIF Transilvania (SIF3.RO), which dropped 3.27% to RON0.591 per share.

The 25-share blue-chip index BET-XT, which also includes the SIFs, declined 1.29%, to 553.56, while energy companies index BET-NG closed at 832.19, down 1.03% on the day.

Trades unfolded Thursday on the Bucharest Stock Exchange amounted to 49.48 million lei (EUR1=RON4.1021), with RON3.8 million coming from three deal market trades with the shares of SIF Moldova (SIF2.RO), lender Banca Transilvania (TLV.RO) and plastic items maker Teraplast (TRP.RO). Yesterday's overall traded value stood at RON32.29 million.

The Proprietatea fund was once again the day's top-traded issuer. Its stock closed down 1.09%, to RON0.591, on a traded value of RON19.46 million.

Banca Transilvania was the second-top traded issuer, and its shares closed flat at RON1.501, following trades worth a total RON11.4 million.

Other popular stock Thursday included SIF Oltenia (SIF5.RO) - which closed down 2.75% to RON1.59, Bucharest bourse operator BVB (BVB.RO) - down 0.91% to RON43.6 and state-owned power grid operator Transelectrica (TEL.RO) - whose shares were flat at RON21.5.