Foreigners bring Stock Exchange down: SIFs lose another 8%

The pressure of sellers intensified yesterday on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, bringing share prices significantly down, although foreign markets were calm and remained on the rise almost throughout the entire day.
The BET-FI index of SIFs (Financial Investment Companies) closed down 7.9%, reaching a lower level than at the beginning of the year, with decline amounting to as much as 10% over the course of the session. The BET index also lost over 6.7%, and transactions once again exceeded 10 million euros.
"Considering how the market looks - an over 13 million-euro volume of transactions, it is definitely an investment fund that exited the Romanian market. A 4-5 million-euro exit was immediately felt on a market low on liquidity, such as the local one, which is why such index quotes were recorded," said Rares Nilas, manager of BT Securities.
The top decliner was SIF Oltenia (SIF5), which lost 9.5% in the wake of transactions worth 4.75 million euros, while other major declines were recorded by Transgaz, and Transelectrica, although their defensive profile should have protected them from corrections of 9% such as those recorded yesterday.