♦ The limited supply of shares and the concentration of the market around a few large issuers had a stabilizing effect in the current context, dominated by geopolitical tensions ♦ Capital was mainly directed towards liquid companies, which moderated the fluctuations of the indices ♦ The difference was clearly seen in March, when, unlike the sharp declines in Western Europe, the local market limited the corrections, supported by the energy and banking sectors ♦ Against the background of inflation of almost 10%, still the highest in the Union European, capital protection through investments with high returns makes the capital market more relevant than ever.
A capital market is not worth much in good times – then, the money comes anyway. Its real value is seen when things get complicated: when banks tighten the tap, when strategic investors sit on the sidelines and when the cost of credit rises. If the market remains liquid even in those moments, companies and investors do not run out of options. And this is precisely what the Bucharest Stock Exchange has demonstrated since the outbreak of the war in Iran, in a context dominated by strong oscillations, tensions and changing messages coming from Washington. The question worth asking now is not just why the stock market is holding up, but how stock market resilience can be a factor in the stability of the economy in general. «Investors proved to be quite resilient during this period, and the correction of the local market was in line with past corrections, being smaller during March (compared to western markets – ed.). The recovery was therefore faster and depends on the specifics of the local market, both from the perspective of supply and demand. The market is dominated by energy companies that benefit from the current context,» says Robert Burlan, investment director at the fund manager mutual Raiffeisen Asset Management. Between February 27 – the day the US and Israel launched the first military strikes on Iran – and April 14, the benchmark BET index rose by 3%, an evolution that comes in sharp contrast to developed and regional markets, where the variations were generally negative or modest. The Stoxx 600, which includes large Western European companies, fell about 2.5 percent and the S&P 500 was almost unchanged, up 0.1 percent, while the DAX lost 5.2 percent in Frankfurt and the CAC 40 fell about 3.5 percent in Paris. Globally, the MSCI All Country World Index recorded a decline of almost one percent.
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