Instead of advancing indexes as investors had predicted, 2008's beginning turned out to be a slippery road.

Today indexes on BSE fell to levels near their all time lows, with both SOFIX and BG40 losing more than 5% in one trade session.

Moreover, the declines on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange come after US indexes ended yesterday's trade on positive territory.

While in the very first trade sessions of the year the declines happened at relatively low trade volumes, today's slide is amidst quite high turnovers.

After the first three hours of trade, BSE's turnover reached 10.9 mln leva (5.573 mln euros), which is near its average daily.

The fact that local indexes have not ended a session on positive territory so far this year is also very worrying for investors.

Sine the beginning of 2008 BSE's market capitalization has declined by nearly 7.3%. It currently stands at 26.84 bln leva (13.723 bln euros), compared with 28.99 bln leva (14.822 bln euros) at the end of 2007.

Today's slide was a major one, it affected all blue chips and all sectors.

Analysts had forecast slow and calm trade at the beginning of the year as investors are typically expecting the annual financial statements. These forecasts, however, turned out to be wrong.

Investors are indeed anxiously waiting for the financial reports, but that is mostly with hope that these might reverse the negative trend.

However, we can't neglect the question “What if the reports are not that good?” We'll wait and we'll see. Until then, the only sure thing is that there should be no room for panic. Panic is investor's worst enemy.