BUX further up on optimism in Europe
The Budapest Stock Exchangeʼs main BUX index finished up 92% at 23,826.74 Thursday after rising 0.91% Wednesday. It is up 43.24% from year-end, after losing 10.40% last year.
Tailwind from a euro zone market rally into its second day, on expectation of a more aggressive ECB easing in December than previously thought, pushed the Budapest main index to a fourth nearly four-and-a-half-year high within a week.
The BUXʼs thrust was hardly kept in check by bad local data that come in incessantly.
Retail trade in Hungary shrank in nominal terms for a second month in September in monthly comparison, while annual growth accelerated from August, but remained beneath the year-to-date average, second reading official data showed.
Investment volumes fell 3.4% annually in the third quarter, pulling the first nine-month average down to a 0.3% decline compared with the first three quarters of last year. From the previous quarter, investment volumes fell 0.9%, official statistics also showed on Thursday.
But towards close the BUXʼs pace finally slowed after a rate setter of the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) told Reuters the central bankʼs December inflation forecast would project a much lower economic growth outlook than previous forecasts did.
Winner of the day was oil company MOL, after its chairman-CEO Zsolt Hernadi was taken off of Interpolʼs wanted list. Croatia issued an Interpol Red Notice and a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) for Hernadi on bribery charges in October 2013, in connection with MOLʼs earlier purchase of almost half of its Croatian peer, INA, in 2009.
Also on Wednesday evening Croatia’s former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader has been released from custody on an order by the Zagreb County Court following a ruling by the Constitutional Court. Sanader was in investigative custody in an unrelated case, but earlier the Croatian Constitutional Court has also quashed Sanaderʼs 8.5 years prison sentence by the Supreme Court he has been serving since 2012 because he was found guilty of receiving €10m in bribes for selling INA to MOL, complete with management rights.
OTP won 0.85% to HUF 6,081 on turnover of HUF 3.06 bln from a preliminary HUF 6.95 bln session total, nearly a quarter short of the daily average this year.
MOL gained 1.17% to HUF 13,810 on turnover of HUF 1.17 bln.
Magyar Telekom rose 0.99% to HUF 408 on turnover of HUF 159 mln.
Richter advanced 0.83% to HUF 5,485 on turnover of HUF 1.79 bln.
The bourseʼs mid-cap BUMIX went out 0.27% higher at 1,628.51.
Elsewhere in the region, WIG 20 in Warsaw was up 0.99%, while Pragueʼs PX garnered 0.60%.
Western Europeʼs major indices were all up ahead of their close on Thursday, FTSE100 in London 0.84%, DAX30 in Frankfurt 1.22%, and CAC40 in Paris 1.03%.
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