A most dramatic week for the stock exchange

Listed stock began last week’s final trading session by freefalling, with price slumps reaching 12% by midday.

This came at a time when investors were continuing to throw millions of shares onto the market fearing that in several weeks’ time they will no longer find buyers at these prices.

Most listed stock rallied toward the end of the day after some investors restarted buying, attracted by the ever lower prices. During last week the BET index dropped by almost 15%, one of the market’s most drastic slumps in a single week, leaving prices only 20% higher than at the beginning of the year.

The BET index, which tracks the best traded stock on the market, ended the day with a fall of almost 3%. SIF stock oscillated the most on Friday, closing the day slightly down.

According to brokers, the steep decline of the market was caused by the explosive growth in stock in the first weeks of the year, when the market climbed by 50% without any real explanation. “One of the causes was the high level reached by prices after the solid growth of the beginning of the year, pushing some to sell, planning to buy later on at lower prices. Sales at the time were also prompted by the opinions expressed in the press by various analysts who said that the increases were too large and unjustified by company results. And this is true, increases were too high for such a short period of time – had this growth been seen over the first eight months of the year, it would have been normal,” said Petru Prunea, chairman of SSIF Broker securities firm.
vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro ; catalin.ciocan@zf.ro