Did you miss the online conference Financial Market Pulse, organized by the Romanian Investor Relations Association? We’ve pulled a few of the remarks from our colleague, Aurel Bernat, CEO, BT Asset Management, on the capital market:

• Investors looking at shorter time horizons shouldn’t judge solely by the return over the last 360 days, which has been spectacular. Equity funds, for example, are up 50% versus the same period last year. It’s healthy to think long term about the investments we want to make, while also taking some satisfaction in where we’ve got to.
  
  
  
• Good things come to those who wait, and that’s perfectly true for the capital market. The market over the last 10-15 years has shown that those who have the discipline to stay invested end up ahead, as cycles of growth and decline even out over time.
  
  
  
• For a company to perform, it needs competitiveness, and competitiveness shows best in markets where a third party comes in and values you. We should definitely focus on stock exchange listings, whether for private or state-owned companies, looking in particular at companies’ current sources of financing. Bank financing is predominant; unfortunately, locally we don’t use capital market financing enough, as happens, for example, in the US.
  
   
• I think this is a good time to channel any investor’s liquidity in the market toward companies’ growth, and for the state this strategy is like a sale-and-leaseback: it sells a holding, takes in cash, and can then use it for other projects.
  
  
  
• It’s very important, in a market that manages to mobilize as much money as possible, that we can at any time put that money back into the local economy. So, as regards the privatization of state-owned companies, go forward. We should list as much as possible, because there is investor interest, all the more so as we are currently at highs. People are generally keen to make such investments, and institutional investors are ready at any time.
  
  
  
• As investors in the capital market, the first thing to remember is that for growth to be healthy, the pace needs to be healthy. Few companies manage to double or triple in value over just a few months, likely at the expense of healthy underlying business growth. Investment expectations should be aligned with realities, not set purely off the last 360 days.