Brokerage firms see turnovers down by over 40% in BSE's worst year

The top 40 brokerages active on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) saw their business down by over 40% last year, after the market fell by around 55% in 2008.

The cumulated turnover of the 40 companies was 62 million RON (14.6 million euros) last year, compared with 110 million RON in 2008. In 2007, the Stock Exchange’s peak year, the same brokers posted over 240 million RON in turnover.
The 2009 decline primarily had to do with the extremely low Stock Exchange liquidity, with the plummeting daily prices driving many investors away from the market. The average value of daily transactions hit a five-year low last year, around 23 million RON (5 million euros), a 33% decline on the previous year. But the businesses of brokerage firms fell even further because many were also forced to cut trading commissions in order to keep their clients.