1 year treasuries were issued at an interest rate of 0.03%.

The Croatian Ministry of Finance announced that they have issued HRK 1.86bn worth of 1-year Treasury Bills with a interest rate of 0.03%, ahead of the maturity of HRK 1.576bn of treasuries (which were issued at an interest rate of 0.06%).  

As announced by the Ministry of Finance, most of the treasuries were purchased by non-bank financial institutions, that being as much as 98.92%. Looking at the ownership structure of the maturing treasuries, one could indicate that the largest buyer could be one big Croatian public agency that is invested heavily in short term securities, which is tied to the nature of it’s liabilities.

With the maturity of HRK 1.576bn in treasury bills, the balance of subscribed HRK treasuries increased by HRK 279m to HRK 14.488bn.

The next auction will take place on 16 February, ahead of the maturity of another HRK 1bn worth of treasuries.

By looking at the latest announcement from the Tax Administration of the Republic of Croatia, being tracked for Covid-19 pandemic purposes, in the period from 24 Feb till 7 Feb 2021 the value of taxable invoices decreased by 15.59% YoY.

A higher frequency data is compiled by Croatian Tax Administration, a department of the Ministry of Finance, who stated that the value of taxable invoices dropped by 15.59% YoY (or HRK 29.7bn) in the period from 24 February 2020 till 7 February 2021. Meanwhile total taxable invoices in the mentioned period amounted to HRK 160.79bn.

Drop in taxable invoices in wholesale and retail trade in the same period was at 7.39% (or HRK 9.25bn) while drop in accommodation and food services reached 48.65% (or HRK 13.2bn).

The value of taxable invoices in the 1st week of February 2021, observed a decrease by 3.52% YoY or HRK 103.6m. On the contrary, taxable invoices in the wholesale and retail trade increased by 4.2% YoY or HRK 86.4m. Drop in accommodation and food services was at -69.66% YoY or HRK 168m, which does not surprise us, given the imposed restrictions in Croatia and throughout Europe with efforts to tackle the spread of the virus.

There is some positive news after all, if we were to compare the figures on a WoW basis. To be specific, the value of invoices has increased by 3.3% or HRK 91.1m.

Trading statistics for January 2021 show an average daily turnover of EUR 8.04m (-19.6% YoY). Meanwhile, BET was up by 5.11%, ending the month at 10,306.47 points.

The Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) started 2021 with all equity indices in positive territory, as the Romanian capital market posted significant increases. The BET-TR index increased by as much as 5.10% in January, closing at a record level of 17,352.34 points.

Turning our attention to trading volume, BVB showed a total equity turnover of EUR 178.04m. This translates into an average daily turnover of EUR 8.04m, representing a decrease of 8.04% YoY. When comparing MoM, this is a decrease of 28.4%.

When observing the top traded sectors, one can notice that financial and insurance sector leads the list with RON 335.21m, followed by Manufacturing with RON 162.16m. Of the Romanian blue chips, Banca Transilvania leads the list with RON 120.8m. Fondul Proprietatea and OMV Petrom follow with RON 91.2m and RON 65m, respectively.

When observing the index constituents, 15 of 17 ended the month in green, while 3 observed a double-digit monthly increase. As visible from the graph below, Conpet leads the list with 16.8%. Nuclearelectrica and Transelectrica follow with an increase of 14.8% and 10.6%, respectively. On the flip side, Medlife leads the losers with a decrease of 4.91%. As a result of the aforementioned, BET erased all of its loss from 2020, coming back to positive territory (+3.3% since Jan 2020).

Share Price Performance of BET Constituents in January 2021 (%)