The shares of several companies in the oil and petrochemical sector have risen sharply in the last week on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, arousing the interest of speculators and leaving analysts wondering, as they can"t come up with any explanations for these moves, given the absence of any news or events that could have caused the moves. Even some of the presidents of these companies were saying yesterday that they had no explanations for the moves of the stocks of their respective companies.

The shares of "Oltchim" Râmnicu Vîlcea (OLT), "Rompetrol Rafinare" (RRC), "Oil Terminal" (OIL), "Petrolexportimport" (PEI) and "Rompetrol Well Services" (PTR) "took off" last week, providing investors with returns between 47% (OIL) and 108% (OLT).

This surprising evolution also continued yesterday, when, after rising 15%, the shares of "Rompetrol Rafinare" fell sharply, closing the day with a loss of 11%, while the shares of "Oltchim" fell 10.01%. This is the first time the stock of OLT fell, after rising for a week and a half.

"Perhaps some investors misinterpreted some news or information that could have impacted these companies", Nicolae Gherguş, the president of "Confident Invest" commented yesterday. He said that in his opinion, there was no news that would justify the "meteoric rise" of these stocks on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, over the last few weeks.

Mihai Chişu, broker at "IFB Finwest", compares the evolution of the five companies, which are active in the oil and petrochemical sector, to that seen in stocks in the fertilizer sector, such as "Amonil" and "Azomureş", which soared in 2008, sucking speculators into the vortex.

Mr. Chişu said:

"One characteristic that these stocks share is the fact that they are being speculated, without any news that would warrant a natural rise. Some time ago we had the rally in fertilizer stocks .