Broker sites offer cheaper online quotations

Brokers will be able to offer much cheaper real time quotations through their own Internet sites compared to those provided by the Bucharest Stock Market’s own website. The stock market charges investors a monthly fee of 50 dollars (38 euros) in order to view quotations in real time. The introduction of this fee as of March 1 triggered a large drop of liquidity on the market, with some speculators being eliminated from the market amid the lack of real time information, many of which used to make very short-term investments, even down to a few hours.

Brokerage firms will able to offer online quotations to investors. They will pay the stock exchange 25 euros per year for each investor provided with online quotations. The fee brokers recoup from customers is equivalent to about 75,000 ROL per month.

The value of trading on the market on Monday failed to exceed 4 million euros, despite the daily average having overshot 13 million euros in the first two months of the year.

The market also dropped slightly on Monday, with the BET and BET-indices falling by around 0.9%. After reporting a 5-6% increase at the start of trading, SIFs also fell slightly, with prices coming under pressure from sellers.

According to traders, however, trying to account for the price and liquidity slump as a result of the introduction of the fee is an “immature” approach.

“By April 1 I do not expect any spectacular increase, provided nothing new emerges in terms of the issue of taxation of market transactions, which is very important for Romanian investors,” a trader said. catalin.ciocan@zf.ro