Bankruptcy at Lehman Brothers triggers crash of Romanian stocks to 3-year minimums

"The domino effect" created by the bankruptcy of American investment bank Lehman Brothers caused slump to a 45-month low on the Bucharest Stock Exchange where financial companies sank an average 9 percent, the steepest fall in the past 16 months.

Liquidity increased to 54.79 million lei (15 million euros) from 15.17 million lei yesterday.

BSE indexes plunge to three-year low

The BET index assessing the ten best companies on BSE crashed 7.10 percent to 4,480.68, a level last reached in December 2004 and the BET-C composite index measuring all listed shares minus financial companies fell 7.41 percent to 3,375.33.

The BET-FI index which tracks the five financial companies SIF plummeted 8.98 percent descending to 27,481.61, a level similar to July 2005 and the ROTX index for trading blue-chips in Vienna slipped 6.55 percent to 10,859.95.

The BET-FI index slipped to the 24,000-25,000 level where it can find support, broker with Prime Transaction, Gabriel Necula told NewsIn.

The BET-XT index of the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse decreased 7.49 percent to 477.07 and the BET-NG index of the ten power companies plunged 642.34.

Big international bourses sink after Lehman Brothers went down

At the closing hour in Bucharest, most European bourses slumped significantly. The main index in Frankfurt, the DAX, dropped 2.72 percent to 5,898.94 and the CAC40 index in Paris lost 2.73 percent to 4,055.01. The FTSE index in London reduced 3.78 percent to 5,007.4.

Asian markets collapsed on fear of financial turmoil caused by bankruptcy at Lehman Brothers and takeover of Merrill Lynch by the Bank of America.

NewsIn