BUX on the back burner again
The Budapest Stock Exchangeʼs main BUX index finished up 0.43% at 21,050.59 Thursday after rising 0.24% Wednesday. It is up 32.56% from year-end, after losing 10.40% last year. Outperforming most European bourses, the Budapest parquet continued up, but still at a slow pace in narrow volumes.
Sluggish preliminary euro zone purchasing manager (PMI) surveys for April, concerns over Greeceʼs debt crisis, and a sudden rise in US Treasury and German bund yields kept investors on edge.
A rise in first-rated yields makes Europeʼs emerging markets relatively less attractive.
While more spectacular BUX rises to multi-year highs until early last week are now history, Richter still champions on the apparently unstoppable rise of the Russian rouble against the Hungarian forint, new export and cooperation opportunities further to the East in Central Asia, and the personal income tax cut next year announced by the government on Tuesday.
Magyar Telekom tended to its wounds for a second day after a deep fall earlier in the week.
OTP corrected down in line with bank shares all over Europe as euro zone PMI surveys suggested slower-than-expected economic growth, but pared losses after reassuring words from the Hungarian prime ministerʼs chief of staff, reiterating that the government would honour the February memorandum of understanding with the EBRD and Erste Bank to cut the windfall bank tax next year, complete with a new pledge that while the government expects banks to lend more, it would not make the bank tax cut conditional on increased lending.
OTP lost 0.31% to HUF 5,820 on turnover of HUF 2.74 bln from a HUF 7.16 bln session total, about a third short of the daily average this year.
MOL eased 0.10% to HUF 14,585 on turnover of HUF 1.58 bln.
Magyar Telekom rose 1.23% to HUF 410 on turnover of HUF 142 mln.
Richter advanced 1.84% to HUF 4,420, a more than 14-month high, on turnover of HUF 2.60 bln.
The bourseʼs mid-cap BUMIX went out 0.05% higher at 1,607.90.
Elsewhere in the region, WIG 20 in Warsaw was up 0.10%, while Pragueʼs PX dropped 0.07%. Western Europeʼs major indices were mixed ahead of their close Thursday, with FTSE-100 in London up 0.22%, DAX30 in Frankfurt down 1.40%, and CAC40 in Paris down 0.86%.
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