Romania has an extreme start to the year: 1. The Bucharest Stock Exchange started 2026 strong, the best month in the last 14 years. The BET stock index, which tracks the evolution of the main shares, gained 11.3% in January, continuing the growth recorded last year, of no less than 45%. The value of the transactions doubled, which can be considered a good sign considering that the low liquidity of the Bucharest Stock Exchange is the main problem of the market. Nuclearelectrica had an increase in January of no less than 31%, this after a 77% increase in the last year. Medlife had a 28% increase in January and a 124% increase in the last year. In addition to the increase of the Stock Exchange in January (last week, in the first week of February, the Stock Exchange had a consecutive drop of three sessions), the Stock Exchange also marked the fulminant start of a share sale operation (IPO) for companies that want to be listed on the Stock Exchange. Electroalfa from Botoşani sold 65.9 million new shares in five days, the offer being closed early on Friday because it was oversubscribed. Retail investors placed orders of 3.4 billion lei, i.e. 680 million euros, i.e. a 60-fold oversubscription. According to the brokers, the growth of the Stock Exchange is supported the most by retail investors, who rushed either to buy shares from the market or to buy shares in Electroafla, in the hope that this new company listed on the Stock Exchange will also bring a profit, just like Cris Tim, who has an increase of over 30% since the listing. If you now list something on the Stock Exchange, either new private companies, or new state companies, or the sale of shares by companies already present on the market, they are bought immediately. The problem is «that we risk drowning in money» without having enough goods on the Stock Exchange when the demand is increasing. Pillar II of pensions simply has nothing left to buy on the Stock Exchange, as do institutional investors. There is simply no merchandise, although money is on all roads. If the Stock Exchange is on the rise, the economy suffers. 2. Unlike the Stock Exchange, the economy is not in the best shape and is struggling not to enter a technical recession (we will see on Friday, February 13, if we closed Q4 on the plus or minus; anyway, 2025 will be on the plus side). Consumption, meaning retail sales from stores, is off to its worst start to the year in a very, very, long time. Some retailers say they haven't had sales this weak in January for as long as they've known. The increase in VAT, the increase in prices from the last part of last year, the increases in property taxes and, last but not least, the non-increase of the minimum wage in the economy from January 1, led to a drop in consumption beyond expectations, with sales in January being very bad. Large retailers have even double-digit volume decreases, sales of durable goods – furniture, household appliances – registering significant decreases, and HoReCa found itself facing an extremely difficult situation, with a major lack of customers. To quote a trader, in January I only took out my rent money and I can say that I am one of the lucky ones. Dan Şucu, the president of Concordia, the largest employers' organization in Romania, said on Friday that many industries are currently experiencing the beginnings of a crisis – HoReCa, cars, real estate, furniture. The Bolojan government came out last week with an economic recovery package that should have been put on the table last year, in order not to start 2026 so badly. This economic recovery package of several billion euros – credit programs, tax facilities – is good, but we will see the effects, at best, in the second part of the year. For the first part of the year, starting from January, there is no program of measures to support demand, to support consumption not to decrease. The non-increase of the minimum wage in the economy from January 1 was a mistake of strategy. Now, when the world will also see in the statistics that the economy started the year badly, it will restrict its spending even more, fearing that the crisis will be established in the whole economy. From an economic point of view, we closed 2025 better than expected, but we started 2026 worse than expected, and at the moment we do not have an engine to pull the economy. There is a lot of money on the market – companies are sitting on money, investors are sitting on money, European funds are sitting in bank accounts, the second pillar of pensions has accumulated money for an entire generation but has nowhere to put it, investment funds are looking everywhere for companies to put money, saving at the bank is increasing and last but not least, the Bucharest Stock Exchange is on the rise. Only the economy is doing badly, and this is not because there is no money in the economy, but because an image of a crisis has been induced without a crisis.
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