300 brokers said “goodbye” to the stock exchange in 2009

The number of brokers operating on the Romanian capital market fell sharply last year to a total of almost 1,200, down by 309 against the previous year, mainly due to the low liquidity on the stock exchange. Whilst for investors with an appetite for risk, 2009 has been a year full of opportunities, with shares that doubled or even tripled in value, for brokerage firms, 2009 was an extension of the difficult times recorded in 2008 - the year when the Stock Exchange collapsed. The 2009 trading volumes, which amounted to half the 2008 ones, prompted brokerage firms to make some of their employees redundant. At the end of last year, the National Securities Commission (CNVM) had 1,197 agents registered as providing financial investment services (brokers i.e.), compared with 1,506 in the previous year, according to data provided by the Commission. "Over the last few years, there has been a natural selection of professionals working on the capital market. Although 2008 was the year of an unprecedented collapse in the price of shares, 2009 was one of the weakest in terms of liquidity," said Lucian Isac, general manager of Estinvest brokerage. Amid a 2 million-euro daily traded volume on the stock exchange, a brokerage company earns 300 euros a day on average from trading commissions. Over 2,000 professionals are operating on the capital market, supervised by almost 200 employees of the National Securities Commission.