The joy of the investors on the Stock Exchange that gained almost half of last year's growth in the first day of trading of 2007 has been turning into worry over the last few days. The BET index witnessed its third day of decline in a row, while the SIFs ended the day with losses for the fifth consecutive day.
Most of the profits generated by the main stocks since the beginning of the year have been dwindling over the last few days, while the SIFs have already gone down below the prices recorded in late 2006.
The shareholders of SIF Muntenia, the hardest hit by the declines of the last few days, have lost 8% of their money already compared with the end of 2006.
BRD was the exact opposite, which managed to stay close to this year's high and ended with an 8.1% increase compared with the end of 2006 yesterday. The anticipation of the BSE declines that the investors have come to expect every spring over the last few years, the time to pay the taxes on last year's gains, the freezing of millions of euros of the investors accounts by the CNVM (National Securities Commission) until the investigation in Alumil's offering is completed or, more recently, the open conflict on the political stage between the President and the Prime Minister have all been reasons that drove the market down in the recent weeks.
The SIFs lost 2% on the average yesterday, while the BET index fell 1.3% due to a higher liquidity than in the previous day. Of the top ten shares in terms of traded value, only one, Broker Cluj, ended the day with no decrease.
It usually takes only bad news and a few days of decline for a downward trend to set in on the Romanian market, which is influenced by speculators.
"Surely the political events left their mark on the trend of the Stock Exchange, but it is hard to say how much they contributed to the decline of the market. The market is highly speculative and anything that comes up influences quotes right away, regardless of whether or not it makes sense for this to happen," says Emil Ogica, vice-president of capital market consultancy company KTD Invest.
"The political crisis is what I think influenced the market yesterday, and those who had planned to buy are now sitting and waiting to see what happens. The investors will probably get used to this in a couple of days and things will calm down. On the other hand, I don't think we will have steady trends on the market any more like we used to in the previous years, but rather successive increases and decreases," says Marius Trif, chairman of Carpatica Invest, Banca Comerciala Carpatica's brokerage firm.
The SIFs, whose market continued to be ruled by Romanian speculators, have remained among the most volatile shares this year, losing more percentage points than the other shares when the market goes down, but usually yielding the highest profits when the market goes up.
Pentru alte știri, analize, articole și informații din business în timp real urmărește Ziarul Financiar pe WhatsApp Channels
