Stock trading jumped 275 percent, but is still far from 2008.

While the Zagreb Stock Exchange index is at the level of 2008, liquidity has not yet come close to the figures from that first crisis year, despite this year’s significant improvement. The Zagreb Stock Exchange trading report showed that in September, a total trading volume of 104.7 million euros was achieved, which is almost 90 percent higher than in August. However, the true scale of this year’s liquidity increase is evident when compared to September of last year – total trading volume jumped an impressive 275 percent.

The bulk of September’s trading volume consists of equity trading amounting to 69.8 million euros. For illustration, a year earlier, only 18.5 million euros were traded in shares on the Zagreb Stock Exchange. If block trading is included, in September, shares on the domestic exchange were traded for 95.8 million euros. Following shares, trading in investment funds whose shares are traded on the exchange (ETFs) amounted to 3.1 million euros. This item recorded an improvement of 60 percent. Other trading indicators also show improvement.

Return of Liquidity

Last month, 4.5 million securities changed hands, of which nearly two million were shares. On an annual basis, equity volume grew by 72 percent, while total volume increased by two percent, primarily due to higher bond and ETF volumes from last September. The return of liquidity is also indicated by the number of transactions – last month, 13,800 transactions were recorded, almost 170 percent more than a year earlier. All of this resulted in a higher value – the market capitalization of all securities rose to 55.1 billion euros, 16 percent higher than in the same period last year.

The recovery is also noticeable on a nine-month basis. The total trading volume of 625 million euros has practically doubled, while equity trading of 390 million euros strengthened by 85 percent. Although these are the highest trading figures in the last fifteen years, compared to the ‘golden age’ of the domestic stock market, these are still crumbs. Given that the CROBEX index is currently at 3,800 points, as it was in 2008, in this context, it is not bad to return to that year, the first in which the domestic stock market began to slide due to the financial crisis that erupted in the U.S.

Trading in the first nine months of 2008 amounted to 24.8 billion kuna, or 3.3 billion euros. This means that this year’s trading volume in the first nine months is only a fifth of the volume from 17 years ago. When compared to the pre-crisis and record year of 2007, the situation is even worse – that year, a total of 66.5 billion kuna, or approximately 8.86 billion euros, was traded. However, let’s return to 2025, where only one stock convincingly dominates in equity trading. This is Končar – Elektroindustrija, which collected 29.6 million euros in trading volume in September. Such trading volume was accompanied by a price increase of just under 14 percent.

Žito and Ing-Grad in the top ten

The extent of investor focus on Končar is evidenced by the fact that all other stocks in the group of the ten most traded did not even come close to achieving double-digit results. In second place with 5.3 million euros in trading volume is Podravka, with a price increase of 4.5 percent, while the third place on this list went to Žito. The stock from the second public offering this year collected 4.4 million euros in trading volume with a slight price increase of 0.5 percent. Along with Ing-Grad, another IPO stock this year that traded for 2.5 million euros, it has once again confirmed the thesis that new, interesting issues placed to a larger number of small investors positively affect the liquidity of the entire market.

As for the most liquid issues, the largest price increase was achieved by AD Plastik. The security of this automotive parts manufacturer jumped by more than 21 percent. Among the most liquid, only two stocks recorded a price drop: the preferred stock of Končar – Distributive and Special Transformers (–2.2 percent) and Valamar Riviera (–1.3 percent).