BVB transactions up by 5 pct in H1, while global transactions grew by 24 pct

Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) transactions grew by 5 percent in the first semester of this year and the global transactions grew by 24 percent, according to the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE).

The cash equity markets experienced a drop of 24 percent in the value traded, and 6.9 percent in the number of trades in the first half of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015. These declines show a slow-down in trading activity in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly China.

FX and commodities exchange traded derivatives led a 1.4 percent increases in all exchange-traded derivatives, according to the WFE’s half-year statistics.

Global market capitalisation decreased by 9.4 percent from H1 2015, reaching USD 67.2 trillion compared with USD 74.2 trillion. Asia-Pacific amounted USD 4 trillion of this decline, ending the half year at USD 23.3 trillion, down by 14.9 percent from the end of the first half of 2015.

The value of share trading decreased 24 percent worldwide to USD 44.9 trillion in the six-months to June 2016 compared with USD 59.2 trillion in the same period in 2015. Most of the decrease is due to the decline in trading activity in the Asia-Pacific region where the value of share trading decreased by 47 percent from that seen in the first half of 2015.

Total number of trades in H1 2016 decreased by 6.9 percent from H1 2015. As the Asia-Pacific region accounted for 66 percent of all trades in the first half of 2015 this decline is entirely due to a 20.6 percent drop in the number of trades in this region. Both the Americas and EMEA experienced an increase in number of trades in H1 2016 compared to the same period in 2015.

Total new listings in the first half of 2016 (including IPOs) dropped by 49 percent overall compared to the first half of 2015. Similarly, investment flows channelled through exchanges declined by nearly 31.4 percent in the first half of 2016 compared to the same period of 2015.

“The first half of 2016 saw a marked decrease in global market capitalisation, led by Asia-Pacific, but felt across all three regions; this is a continuing downward trend since the second half of 2015. It is interesting to note, however, the strong performance of both the Americas and EMEA in terms of number of trades. Moreover, the growth in the value of share trading in the Americas also supports a robust H1 for the region overall. As ever, our data provides a statistical view of underlying market activity, and demonstrates the role exchanges provide in serving the real economy,” said Nandini Sukumar, CEO of WFE.

Georgiana Bendre