Bucharest Stock Exchange in 2025

Banca Transilvania reached for the first time, yesterday, February 24, a capitalization of 40 billion lei on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB), reaching a new historical high, therefore today we propose to analyze how things went in 2025 on the Romanian stock exchange.

⚡ Spoiler alert! BVB had one of the strongest performances in recent years, and the BET index was one of the stars of the international market.

About increasing capitalization, liquidity in an upward trend, and returns with strong developments, we invite you to read today in The MacRO Zone.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) is main and onlyregulated capital market of Romania. She has the role of facilitating the meeting between investors and companies that need funding through various financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, or structured products.

Did you know that... The Bucharest Stock Exchange was founded in 1882 and operated until 1948 when it was closed by the communist regime?

The relaunch of the stock exchange took place in 1995, and two decades later, in 2020, BT, together with Nuclearelectrica, qualified Romania for the status of Secondary Emerging Market , granted by FTSE Russell.

BVB operates on two main distinct segments:

REGULATED MARKET

• Intended for large companies, with a capitalization of at least 1,000,000 euros
• Includes the most liquid stocks and systemically important issuers
• The market in which the index is formed BET
  
  

ALTERNATIVE EXCHANGE IN ROMANIA (AeRO)

• Created for SMEs, start-ups and companies with a minimum capitalization of 250,000 euros
• Functions as a launchpad on the main market
• Important instrument for financing the real economy
  
  

2025 IN REVIEW

Bucharest Stock Exchange had one of the strongest years in the last decade, both as yields, as well as deepening of the market. More exactly, we refer here to the accelerated growth of the indices, higher capitalization, more liquidity, but also an investor base (especially retail) that continues to grow. All these signals show us a market in the gradual process of maturing.

The central point of the year was the performance of the BET index, which rose by 46% in 2025, a dynamic described as "one of the best evolutions globally". At the same time, BET-TR (the variant including dividends, assuming their gross reinvestment) advanced by 55%, suggesting that not only the appreciation of prices was the driver of the return, but also the cash distributions (an important structural element for the Romanian market).

THE BET INDEX INCREASED BY 46% IN 2025
Price indices: the evolution of STOXX Europe 600, S&P 500 and WIG is expressed in RON

• Chronologically, we look at an overall picture in which we observe that, in the first months of 2025, political uncertainty translated into a cvasistagnare (extremely slow evolutions, with minimal variations), and after presidential elections (may) și formation of the governing coalition (June), BET has registered on a clear growth trajectory.
  
  
• 2025 confirms once again emerging market status in which political clarity is fundamental. Romania has many companies regulated by the state and with significant state shareholding. When the fiscal direction becomes predictable, the perceived risk decreases. And when risk decreases, valuations increase.
  
  

MARKET CAPITALIZATION* OF COMPANIES LISTED ON THE BVB ROSE BY 34% IN 2025

Market capitalization, Regulated Market and AeRO Market, MD | RON

• The evolution of prices was directly reflected in the market issuance, so today we are talking about a total stock market capitalization of 326 billion lei (excluding Erste Group Bank). We are practically talking about an increase of 34% to/to.
  
  
• The increase came on the back of revaluations of "blue-chip" companies included in BET, but especially from the dynamics of listings. We saw companies such as GreenTech, Cris-Tim and Group EMwhich have listed this year with fantastic success.
  
  
• What do all this information actually tell us? The fact that BVB is starting to consolidate its role of funding platform, not just trading, through the offering of diversified financial instruments and issuers.
  
  

AVERAGE DAILY VALUE AND AVERAGE TRANSACTION VALUE, 2016–2025

Bucharest Stock Exchange – Regulated Market – Shares

• Liquidity marked a consolidation healthy, considering that, over the course of the year, we saw an average daily value traded on shares amounting to 68 million lei (+3.4% vs. 2024).
  
  
• If we look at the microstructure of trading, we see that the average value of a transaction is above the threshold of 10 thousand lei, which means an increase of 22% compared to the previous year. However, looking back, we observe that, although the activity intensified, the average transaction size dropped compared to the 2018-2019 period. This change reveals that retail investors have an increasingly larger contribution in the grand scheme of things.
  
  
• The retail investor is increasingly present, and this translates into more access and, ultimately, the democratization of the market. The number of accounts attests to this, as in 2025, in the market, there were 286,000 investment accounts (+26% year/year).

WHERE DID THE LIQUIDITY CONCENTRATE?

The most traded shares on the BVB were:

• Transilvania Bank | 4.48 billion lei 🎉
• OMV Petrom | 1.69 billion lei
• Hidroelectrica | 1.50 billion lei

The hierarchy confirms the profile of BVB, that of a market in which the financial sector and energy remain the anchors of liquidity and, implicitly, the sentiment benchmarks for investors.

BIG SHOUT OUT FOR BT CAPITAL PARTNERS

In 2025, our colleagues from BTCP were the star of the capital market, and because we like numbers, we will let them tell you the story:

⭐ 28% market share of the total value of transactions intermediated by BVB
BTCP is thus the largest broker of BVB, for the second consecutive year

⭐ 35% market share in bond market intermediation
BTCP is the largest intermediary in the main segment of the bond market, the third year

⭐ 19% market share in stock market intermediation
BTCP is the leader in brokering the Romanian stock market

And besides all these achievements, BTCP have also intermediated a series of bond issuances on the External Markets and on the Main Market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Among these we mention:

• Transilvania Bank | Eligible MREL issuance of 1.5 billion lei (June, listed on the Dublin Stock Exchange)
• Electrica | Green bonds worth 500 million euros (July, listed on BVB)
• Romgaz | Bonds worth 500 million euros (October, listed on BVB)

THE YEAR IN WHICH BVB ACCELERATED

Looked at together, these elements outline a 2025 in which the Bucharest Stock Exchange revved its engines to the maximum and accelerated on three axes:

• Yield spectacular (BET +46%, BET-TR +55%)
• Size on the rise (Capitalization of 326 billion lei and growth of 34%)
• Participation extended (+26% y/y in the number of accounts)

The market has gone from being sensitive to uncertainty to being reactive to clarity: it waited, received a signal of political stabilization, and quickly reevaluated local assets. And this reevaluation was supported not only by optimism but also by concrete mechanisms (dividends, listings, increase in the investor base, and the increasingly active functioning of the fixed income instruments market) which, together, make the 2025 performance seem not like a statistical accident, but a coherent episode in a maturing market.