The blue chips of the Bucharest Stock Exchange ended yesterday having declined by up to 6 percent, with no precise cause having been pinpointed.
This was perhaps an attempt on the part of speculators to take advantage of the weakness of the market over the last few days. The total market capitalisation fell by almost 700 million euros, to less than the 20 billion euros it had exceeded several days ago. The main losers in terms of market value were Petrom, which fell by 380 million euros and BRD that shed nearly 200 million euros of its capitalisation.
Petrom fell 4 percent yesterday to less than 0.6 RON/share, while BRD went down 5 percent and ended the day at 18.7 RON/share. The SIFs witnessed an average decline of 0.1 RON/share each, with their respective index, the BET-FI, concluding the day with a 3.6 percent decrease. Petrom and BRD, the biggest listed companies, had also generated the highest gains this year, and are sustaining the highest losses in the downturn.
Brokers say the lack of buyers on the market is to blame for yesterday''s sharp decline, along with sales by those hoping to buy cheaper in the next few days.
"The customers make a 100 percent profit off the SIFs for instance and they do not take too much time to think whether they should sell now or wait until the market goes down. The thing is, there''s hardly anyone to sell to," the head of operations of one of the largest companies on the market explained.
The markets in the region had a rather calm day yesterday, with the fluctuations not exceeding 1.5 percent. The sharp decline seen on the markets in March last year still lingers in the memory of investors and some players could well be afraid of a similar trend this year, particularly because the Stock Exchange started the year with significant growth, as it did the year before.
"We''ve got money, but why should we buy now? We''re waiting (for stocks) to go down," a broker said yesterday, who complained about the lack of orders on the market. The total value of yesterday''s transactions amounted to 16 million euros, quite low compared with the heavy price fluctuations.
The market was pulled up by acquisitions made by foreign investors at the beginning of the year, in addition to new Romanian investors, who began to buy once they saw the market go up. The presence of foreign investors has not been that strong over the last few days, and this encouraged some of the Romanian investors to stop buying.
Last week saw a steady appreciation of the domestic currency on the foreign exchange market. This on the one hand made shares look more expensive in foreign currency, and on the other hand increased the profits of the foreign funds, which do their calculations in dollars and euros, more and more.
Despite yesterday''s decline, the BET and BET-C have witnessed over 20 percent growth since the beginning of the year, while the SIFs have risen by approximately 7%.
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