Politicians, Unions, Employers Roil Market
The Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) ended the week on a predominantly negative note as politicians, labor unions and employers continued to get on the nerves of the market participants.
Following yesterday's record intraday advance of the SOFIX, the index of the Bulgarian blue-chips shed 1.34% to 354.57 points today.
The SOFIX was trading on positive territory in the beginning of today's session until it emerged that the talks regarding the changes in the pension system have hit another roadblock and it is unclear as to what the government's decisions on the issue will be.
The whole situation shifted investors' focus away from the quarterly reports of the companies, which resulted in a highly speculative market.
BSE's other three indexes also ended Friday's session with declines: BG 40 (-1.07%, to 111.21 points), BG REIT (-0.12%, to 41.99 points) and BG TR30 (-1.02%, to 285.03 points).
BSE's overall turnover came close to 510,000 leva. A total of 73 issues were traded on the day with 27 of the stocks posting price gains.
The weekly performance of the indexes is as follows: SOFIX (+3.07%), BG 40 (-0.1%), BG REIT (+2.92%) and BG TR30 (+2.33%).
Today was also the last session for the month of October. Most of BSE's indexes posted monthly declines - SOFIX (-8.41%), BG 40 (-2.76%) and BG TR30 (-4.9%). BG REIT was the only gainer over the month, advancing by 0.36%.
All four indexes are still in negative territory since the start of 2010. The year-to-date performance of the indexes is as follows: SOFIX (-17.02%), BG 40 (-5.08%), BG REIT (-12.54%) and BG TR30 (-14.88%).
See the table for more information on the performance of BG40's stocks over the week:
Data: BSE