Foreigners'' brokers keep the top positions

Brokerages mainly working with foreign investors no longer dominate the top of the Stock Exchange, as they had during the first nine months of last year. The “hold” positions by some institutional investors boosted the share of transactions conducted by Romanian investors in the total amount of transactions carried on the Stock Exchange last month. Thus, market shares of the main brokers on the market did not register any considerable gains in terms of ranking.

Nevertheless, even though the transactions conducted for Romanian investors have increased in volume, it is still the operations brokered for institutional investors that make an impact at the top end of the ranking.

The top brokers on the Bucharest Stock Exchange last month were the brokers of Raiffeisen Capital & Investment (RCI), taking the lead from ING Securities, which had held the top position in January and February. The brokers of RCI in March handled transactions worth 40.58 million euros, for a market share of almost 8.3%, while ING brokers handled a total volume of transactions amounting to 37.61 million euros, which got them 7.67% of the market. Both brokerages predominantly work with foreign investors.

“Last month, transactions brokered for foreign investors accounted for the bulk of our transactions volume. As a matter of fact, foreigners bought more in March compared with the previous month. Both along the segment of foreign investors and overall, more stock was purchased than sold through our company in March,” specified Dana Mirela-Ionescu, chairperson of Raiffeisen Capital & Investment brokerage. She added that a part of last month”s transactions were conducted for new foreign investors who had opened accounts with RCI.

SSIF Broker Cluj and BT Securities, the main brokerages on the retail sector, rank third and fourth, as they did in February.

Focusing on Romanian investors allows brokers that employ such a strategy to generally have a constant flow of transactions. Given their large customer base, the odd customer taking a hold position does not have a strong impact on the traded volume attained by these companies, unlike in the case of brokers that chose to primarily centre on institutional investors.

However, some of these companies have also started developing their retail side, as well over the past year. At the same time, both Broker and BT Securities also handle transactions for their own account, while BT brokers significantly cut down on such transactions. SSIF Broker Cluj handled transactions worth 29.8 million euros, accounting for a 6.09% market share.

On the RASDAQ, Swiss Capital brokerage holds pole position, with a traded volume standing at 2.4 million euros and a market share of 8.9%. catalin.ciocan@zf.ro