BUX back down

The Budapest parquet eked out a small gain in lacklustre trade until early afternoon, turning into the red towards close while the impact of the European Central Bankʼs Tuesday announcement on increasing its QE in May and June waned.

The BUX ended down the sixth time in eight days.

Taking its cue from euro zone bourses which lost stamina, the Budapest share market, too, felt the pressure from a climbing dollar after the previous dayʼs better-than-expected US housing data rekindled concern that the Fed could hike interest rates sooner rather than later, and after a Greek official said Greece may not make an u%oming payment to the International Monetary Fund.

OTP corrected further down despite a HUF 1 bln purchase of own shares on Tuesday, and probably continuing to buy also on Wednesday, as the Hungarian Banking Association said that repayments of 82% of forex household borrowers decreased by 20% on average as a result of compensations under last yearʼs borrowers relief legislation and the spring conversion of forex mortgages into forint debt, which reminded investors that the measures cost banks HUF 1,000 bln, while many debtors are disappointed after the government promised a 25-30% fall in monthly repayments.

A research of EY, the Fraud Survey 2015, warned investors that 42% of big company employees in Hungary, 5% points more than the EMEIA average, think that results statements of their firms paint a brighter than real picture of operation, while 73% of Hungarian employees experience widespread corruption in the local business, more than twice the developed market average and more than 10% points above the Central and Eastern European average. Published on Tuesday, Ernst & Young surveyed 3,800 large firms in 38 countries of the EMEIA region, that is Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa.

Richter followed its recent pattern, moving opposite to the previous dayʼs trend, was it either a fall or a gain.

Magyar Telekom fell convincingly after an announcement of its 59.21% parent, Deutsche Telekom, that it agreed to buy all shares of Slovak Telekom it did not own, cut short ever lingering market expectations that Magyar Telekom could be on Deutsche Telekomʼs buying list any time soon.

OTP lost 1.94% to HUF 5,815 on turnover of HUF 4.29 bln from a HUF 7.12 bln session total, about two-thirds of the daily average this year.

MOL rose 0.24% to HUF 14,880 on turnover of HUF 900 mln.

Magyar Telekom fell 1.41% to HUF 420 on turnover of HUF 224 mln.

Richter advanced 1.28% to HUF 4,435 on turnover of HUF 1.61 bln.

The bourseʼs mid-cap BUMIX went out 0.50% higher at 1,609.46.

Elsewhere in the region, WIG 20 in Warsaw was down 0.09%, while Pragueʼs PX raked up 0.03%. Western Europeʼs major indices were all up ahead of their close Wednesday, FTSE100 in London 0.27%, DAX30 in Frankfurt 0.47 points, and CAC40 in Paris 0.30%.