The BET index, which measures the most traded stocks on the market, has been rising by 4.8% per week, thereby taking stock market growth for the last three weeks to nearly 15%. Brokers were upbeat due to the market growth, saying that stocks are "riding the wave" and that it is very likely this week will bring higher prices.
Almost all brokers put the increase in prices down to the advent of important acquisitions by foreign investors that had been expected since mid-summer. The market is hoping for the continual inflow of foreign funds.
"It is easy to see that there have been money inflows from abroad in the stocks of the major companies of Petrom, BRD and Banca Transilvania. I expect these to continue to rise with the high volume of transactions, as they have over recent weeks," said Grigore Chis, a trading manager with SSIF Broker of Cluj.
After a summer in which the stock market saw negligible and in some cases negative levels of net foreign investment, brokers now expect to see a rallying of the statistics for foreign investment portfolios.
In the first eight months of this year, foreign investors invested 76.8 million euros in stock and sold stock to a value of 51.2 million euros, yielding a negative balance of 25.6 million euros, higher than the net foreign investments on the capital market for the whole of 2003.
Increases in recent days came at a time of record transactions. The value of transactions effected on Thursday was the highest for this year at 16 million euros, almost equalling the value of transactions seen in two weeks this summer.
Petrom was the best performer in recent weeks, with a 25% increase in its share price, which also pushed up the prices for other listed stock. The market tendency of recent weeks, however, has not affected smaller listed stocks, a factor that is continuing to generate market growth. "I think the market will continue to grow. Investors will start to buy stocks that did not increase in line with the overall market, since as a rule this is what happens when the market grows strongly, and higher purchasing orders for these stocks will continue to push the market higher," commented Octavian Dragolea, general manager of European Securities.
vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro
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