The month of May subdued the bearish sentiments on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE), pulled mostly by positive developments in the latter trading sessions of the month. Yet experts recommended to curb the elation and dreams of the bourse’s October 2007 highs. Nonetheless, the month of May saw the number of loss-makers narrowed by half as against April and by two thirds versus March. While in May as many as 70 companies ended in the red domain, the numbers in April and March stood at 145 and 155 respectively.

As a result in May, the main Sofix index regained ground, adding 10.7 per cent to 1260 points in April. The broader BG40 added 9.9 per cent to 350.4 points. The index tracking the movement of infrastructure companies’ stock BGTR30 added 8.2 per cent to 843.11 and that tracking real estate investment trusts BGREIT were up 0.5 per cent to 96.14 points. In April, all indices were in the red zone, Sofix shedding 9.3 per cent, BG40 10.2 per cent, BGTR30 5.4 per cent and BGREIT 1.6 per cent.

Despite the up-streak and the higher number of deals struck (40 000 as against April’s 32 000), total turnover in May, at 146.19 million leva, was smaller than that reported in April (227 million leva).

The most liquid shares that month were those of Holding Patishta, Chimimport and Zurneni Hrani Bulgaria with, respectively, 3233, 3101 and 3076 transactions.

According to experts, the main driver of growth in May was the rebound of peers in Central and Eastern Europe, the fading effect of investors’ disappointment with public companies’ quarterly reports and the news that a number of public infrastructure companies would be the beneficiaries from a government decision to spend the bulk of the budget surplus on infrastructure projects.

The first two trading sessions in June, however, were again reminiscent of early-year bourse performance. Turnover was at half that reported in any of the days the previous week, on June 2 being at 4.55 million leva and on June 3 at 4.33 million leva.

At June 3 close, Sofix lost 0.09 per cent to 1239 points and BGTR30 shed 0.42 per cent to 833.73 points. BG40 and BGREIT took the reverse streak with increases of, respectively, 0.34 per cent and 1.18 per cent to 346.73 and 97.02 points.

Bourse players interpreted slack interest to the anticipated June 16 launch of BSE’s new trading platform, Xetra. The new platform, which will open BSE-traded equity to foreign financial houses and investors, is expected to shoot the number and value of transactions up both because of the more intense activity from local and international investors alike.

The news that Morgan Stanley replaced UBS as shareholder in Bulgartabac Holding and Blagoevgrad BT, respectively, had a mixed effect on the shares of the two companies. While the former reported gains of six per cent, the cigarette factory suffered a loss of 5.56 per cent.