In January, BET increased by 0.99%, ending the month at 13,190.07 points.

Bucharest Stock Exchange has published its monthly trading report for January 2022. During the month, the new record was made – on January 25th, 16,100 transactions were made in a single day, which is the highest number of transactions ever recorded. Compared to January 2021, transactions with shares listed on the Regulated Market increased by 158% and exceeded RON 2bn, app. EUR 400m.

The total equity turnover on the Exchange amounted to EUR 408.7m, while the average daily turnover amounted to EUR 20.4m. In January, OMV Petrom had the highest turnover of EUR 221.5m (which amounts to 45.8% of all equity turnover), followed by Banca Transilvania with a turnover of EUR 43.6m, Fondul Proprietatea with a turnover of EUR 26.4m, BRD with EUR 18.7m, and Nuclearelectrica, with a turnover amounting to EUR 14.7m.

Looking over to the BET constituents, we can see that 12 out of 20 companies experienced growth during the month. The largest increase was recorded by Sphera Franchise Group, which increased by 15%, followed by BRD, ALRO and Teraplast, which experienced increases of 11.8%, 11.1% and 9.6%, respectively. No other company from the index reported an increase of over 5%, while only DIGI and Fondul Proprietatea reported an increase of over 2%. This means that out of 20 companies in the index, only 6 had an increase of over 2% during January.

This is in line with the global sentiment that was witnessed during the month. Things like the inflation and expected rate hikes in the US, the Russia-Ukraine tension, as well as the surging commodity (mainly gas) prices were present – all of them negatively influencing the market, as can be seen by the low growth of most of these companies during January.

Meanwhile, the highest decrease in price in January was reported for Transelectrica, Transgaz and OMV Petrom, which declined by 6.7%, 5.5% and 5.4%, respectively. Besides the market uncertainty, all 3 of these companies are in the energy production/distribution sector, and considering the volatility of energy prices, this decline comes as no surprise.

Performance of BET constituents in January (%)