Today, we decided to bring you a quick overview of how much time (days) is required to sell 1% of the market capitalization on several regional exchanges, based on the latest available (8M 2025) data for the exchanges.
Liquidity is an ongoing issue on regional stock exchanges, and is one of the most important factors when it comes to investment decisions, especially in the case of larger, institutional players, which usually make trades in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of euros.
As such, a lack of liquidity on the market disincentivizes investments, and this is something that has been plaguing the region for a long time now. Due to this, looking at how fast a minor but still large 1% market cap position can give us some idea about the overall market state.
It should be noted that several issues remain that cannot be resolved quickly, and one of them is most present on the Zagreb Stock Exchange – that of many companies which were listed years ago, but are experiencing tiny levels of turnover. The result? The whole calculation is skewed towards ZSE being “less” liquid than it actually is, at least when it comes to investing in larger, more prominent blue chips. Furthermore, we would also like to note that the turnover numbers used for calculations exclude block transactions, which have been one of the primary ways of buying/selling large positions, without affecting the price and thus liquidity.
Time needed to sell 1% of the market capitalization on regional exchanges (8M 2025 data for turnover and market cap, latest available)
Source: Respective Stock Exchanges, InterCapital Research
Out of all the regional stock exchanges observed, ZSE has the “longest” period needed to sell 1% position, at 163 days. Even though, in general, the average daily turnover improved during 2025 (app. EUR 1.94m during the 8M period, as compared to between EUR 1m and EUR 1.5m before), the issue of the mass of lowly traded companies still exists. If we were looking at just the companies that are actually being traded regularly, this number would end up better for the exchange, and as big investments/divestments are made by larger players, as a consequence, they would also be more interested in these types of companies.
Next up, we have the Macedonian Stock Exchange (MSE), on which an investor would need approximately 113 days to purchase/sell 1% of the market cap. Out of all the exchanges observed, MSE is by far the smallest one, with the smallest turnover. Given the country’s size and its development, however, this is to be expected.
On the other hand, investors on LJSE and BVB would need “only” 63 and 65 days, respectively, to sell 1% of the market cap. There are key differences between these two exchanges, however. LJSE is smaller, in terms of size and turnover, but more importantly, in the number of companies listed. This proved to be quite a positive upside for the exchange, as investments are more focused on the better-performing and larger blue chips, which allows investors to basically participate in all the most important companies/industries with investments in only about a dozen companies. Liquidity for the largest blue chips has been quite decent on the exchange, with the likes of Krka recorded average turnovers that often surpass millions of euros.
Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB), on the other hand, is far larger, in fact, the largest in the SEE region. A lot of developments were made on the exchange in the last couple of years. There’s a stable index of 20 companies that cover many different sectors of the economy, and both the exchange and other market participants are quite active in promoting the market. As a result, there’s far more turnover, especially on the larger blue chips, which is positive for both price movements and liquidity. While the time to sell a 1% position on any of these exchanges does not tell us the whole story by itself, it does offer us a route of comparison between them, which ones are improving, and why they are improving. The recent signing of the memorandum for the regional stock exchanges, which includes all of the stock exchanges observed, could improve liquidity even further. However, for this to be achieved properly, a lot of regulations have to be streamlined between the countries, and there needs to be (continuous) political will to execute all the changes required. If this can be achieved, the market conditions could improve across the board, including liquidity.