As the summer holiday season is still in full swing, and with no clear guidance from global markets, today the indices on the Zagreb Stock Exchange may stagnate with low trading volume.
All 8 analysts from brokerage firms who participated in Hina’s survey expect stagnation of the Crobex today. In the absence of guidance from the domestic economy, as well as from global markets, yesterday’s trading saw domestic stock indices finish almost unchanged. The Crobex index strengthened by 0.01 percent to 1,846 points, while Crobex10 increased by 0.02 percent to 981 points. Regular trading amounted to only 7 million kuna, which is 11 million kuna lower than on Friday. “As the summer holiday season is still in full swing, trading volumes in the domestic market were very low yesterday, and the Crobex remained almost unchanged. I expect price stagnation and low trading volume in today’s trading as well,” emphasizes Ana Franin, financial analyst at Raiffeisen Consulting.
Given that there are no news from the domestic business sector, the focus of investors will continue to be on HT shares and other typically most liquid issues, adds Franin. On global markets, the major indices are also stagnating, as investors are cautious due to the slowing global economic recovery. Instead of stocks, they prefer to invest in safer havens for capital such as government bonds and treasury bills, gold, and in Swiss and Japanese currencies. “In response to somewhat worse macroeconomic news from the U.S. and the slowdown in economic growth in Japan, stock prices on Wall Street finished trading slightly down yesterday, just as they did this morning on Asian markets. It remains to be seen whether today’s new series of macroeconomic announcements in the U.S. will manage to revive trading,” concludes Franin.(H)
