Bucharest Stock Exch Suspended Trading at 1041GMT

“We decided to suspend transactions as the BET index showed that the variation threshold of 12% has been surpassed," the general manager of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, Stere Farmache, said.

He discussed with the brokers when the trading should be restarted. "After restarting the trading session, the 12% value will not be considered, the maximum admitted value will be 15%,” Farmache added.

At the moment of trading suspension, the BET index, the main index of Bucharest Stock Exchange, or BVB, was 8.49% under Thursday’s level.

A higher decline of the BET index, which includes the most liquid 10 companies listed on the BVB, was hindered by the Banca Transilvania bank shares, 28.95% of the BET, suspended from trading for consolidating the nominal value.

The BET-C index, that includes all the companies listed at BVB, excluding the regional investment funds, or SIFs, was down 8.78% and the BET-FI index, that calculates only the SIFs, plummeted 12.23%

The total amount of the trades was RON19.3 million (EUR1=RON3.6875).