On the Western markets, they are called 'rallies', a term describing strong speculations over a certain group of stocks in a short period of time. In Romania, brokers are just beginning to get to grips with this notion: for the past two weeks, several long-forgotten stocks have been causing a sensation, offering exceptional and unexpected gains to investors. The evolution of these underdog stocks marks the peak of a general stock market surge, which reached 50% in the first six months of the year and turned the Bucharest Stock Exchange into the second best performing market in the region, after the Ukraine.
Whereas early this year all eyes were on the market's leading lights (Petrom, SIF, BRD and Banca Transilvania), the past few weeks and even days have catapulted into the spotlight stocks such as Amonil Slobozia, Sinteza Oradea, Oltchim Ramnicu-Valcea and Oil Terminal Constanta.
Amonil Slobozia was a genuine surprise - although the company has ceased production and temporarily laid off most of its employees, it has seen its stock price grow almost four times in the past three weeks. Afterwards, other marginal stocks followed suit. In the past two weeks, Carbid Fox Tarnaveni has gone up 48%, Oil Terminal has grown 35%, Oltchim 36%, Sofert 33% and Sinteza has logged a 38% increase.
The biggest surges were recorded in the past few days, when almost all of the above shares grew 15% during each trading session, in fact the maximum level allowed in the course of a single day.
In the case of Amonil, every trading session during the past two weeks has brought daily growth of 15%, given the strong stock purchase orders.
What has fuelled this impressive growth, given that one month ago all these stocks were barely posting daily trades worth several tens of thousands of dollars? Brokers agree that this is a strong speculative surge, boosted by the lack of investment options and the need for cash.
"This whole thing is undoubtedly about speculations. There is plenty of money on the market, the big stocks are too pricey and people directed their attention to the small stocks. The Amonil growth set the tone and induced the idea that money can be earned from stocks other than Banca Transilvania, BRD or Petrom," says Marius Plugaru, president of brokerage company IEBA Trust.
Given this strong growth, the Bucharest Stock Exchange yesterday asked those companies whose stocks were subject to speculations to state whether events justifying such increases had occurred in the course of their operations. Each of the companies denied the occurrence of any such events.
In other words, stocks have gone up because speculators want them to. Or it is simply because there is nothing else to buy, since all the big stocks are deemed as very expensive.
"We have clients that sold their stakes two months ago, during the spring surge, who have kept the money in their bank accounts. Now they are determined to go back to the market and we have to buy stocks irrespective of the prices. It is interesting that many investors are now buying at prices that they believed huge several months ago," says Rares Nilas, general manager of BT Securities, the brokerage arm of Banca Transilvania.
laurentiu.ispir@zf.ro ; vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro
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