BUX plods ahead
The Budapest Stock Exchangeʼs main BUX index finished up 0.15% at 22,588.62 Tuesday after sinking 0.26% Monday. It is up 35.80% from year-end, after losing 10.40% last year.
Mondayʼs last minute wobble notwithstanding, the Budapest parquet rose for the third day, with the main index getting back into viewing distance of its latest nearly four-year high reached eight days ago in the morning, but paring gains in the afternoon.
On raised growth projections from the European Commission on Tuesday for the euro zone and for Hungary, the BUX shrugged off emerging market shock waves after a 4% plunge in Chinese stocks, and only slowed in the afternoon while euro zone equities turned sharply south, mainly on renewed Greek worries and unsettling US trade deficit data.
With its forecast lower than that of the Hungarian government, the European Commission also still sees Hungaryʼs growth trajectory going opposite to the European trend, i.e. slowing this year and next from last year while the euro zone should accelerate, but this did not come as a surprise.
In an interview for the Czech daily Hospodarske Noviny on Tuesday, the head of MOLʼs Czech division, Attila Dsupin, said MOL was waiting for a chance to purchase other petrol stations in that country.
UBS has raised its target price for Hungaryʼs Richter to HUF 5,400 from HUF 4,300 previously on Tuesday, and recommended the share to buy. But the stock also pared close-to-2% gains after the government published figures on how much damage Hungaryʼs export to Russia suffered, especially in chemical and pharmaceutical trade, as a result of EU sanctions against Russia.
OTP won 0.40% to HUF 6,055, again the highest since June 1, 2011, on turnover of HUF 5.29 bln from a HUF 11.60 bln session total, a tenth above the daily average this year.
MOL ended flat at HUF 15,005 on turnover of HUF 2.61 bln.
Magyar Telekom lost 0.24% to HUF 408 on turnover of HUF 146m.
Richter advanced 0.11% to HUF 4,475 on turnover of HUF 3.33 bln.
The bourseʼs mid-cap BUMIX went out 0.33% higher at 1,637.67.
Elsewhere in the region, WIG 20 in Warsaw was down 0.85%, while Pragueʼs PX dropped 0.35%. Western Europeʼs major indices were all down ahead of their close Tuesday, FTSE100 in London 0.41%, DAX30 in Frankfurt 2.03%, and CAC40 in Paris 0.73%.
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