* The BET-FI index is back to its 2009 levels
* Răzvan Paşol, "Intercapital Invest": "Investors are coming to grips with the fact that exiting the crisis will take longer than they expected"
The Bucharest Stock Exchange yesterday had one of the worst days this year, after a mini-holiday when investors couldn"t trade, even though the foreign markets were active. The stock indexes closed down sharply, stemming from the state of panic which set the tone yesterday.
The BET-FI index, which tracks the five financial investment companies, posted the steepest drop, of almost 14%, to 18,008.26 points, its July 2009 levels. The BET index, of the ten most liquid shares on the BSE, yesterday dropped 10.96%, closing at 4,365.99 points, while the composite index BET-C, reached 2,658.23 points, losing almost 10% compared to the previous session. Transactions with SIF5 "Oltenia" stock accounted for almost one third of yesterday"s turnover.
"It is becoming obvious that we are not dealing with a simple correction this time", says Răzvan Paşol, the head of brokerage firm "Intercapital Invest", who says yesterday"s drops were caused by the evolution of the global economy.
"The stock market has been rising over the last year on the hope of improving chances of exiting the crisis. In other words, investors" outlook on the evolution of the global economy was positive. However, what has been happening over the last weeks (Greece"s issues, the nationalization of a Spanish bank and the questions over the future of the Eurozone) showed that the exit from the crisis will take longer and will be more painful than expected. Furthermore, we now have problems which are beginning to surface in other countries, and investors are concerned which country could be next after Greece... there has been too much optimism and now stock prices are beginning to adjust. What happe
