With the end of the third quarter nearing, analysts and investors are penciling in a slowdown of economic growth, while the outlook for the fourth quarter is blurred as the government’s debtor relief programme ups banks’ expected burden by practically every passing week. Other worries are a slowdown of euro area economies and the Russian market with a souring of the EU-Russian tit-for-tat war of sanctions looming.

The Fed’s Wednesday statement did not help much either. Whatever was done to dampen down the worries, the Fed’s rate forecast was higher than expected, foreboding thinner foreign investment flows into emerging markets going into next year, analysts say.

And the sooner the Fed starts hiking its base rate, the stronger the pressure on Hungary’s central bank will be to follow suite, analysts add.

Expectations are high for the European Central Bank (ECB) to widen its quantitative easing, but that programme is to begin only in October.

Meanwhile, the local market is improving less than expected as employment growth accelerated, but the increase of the average net wage slowed in July according to figures published by Hungary’s statistical office on Friday.

Deutsche Bank downgraded MOL to “hold” from “buy”, and cut back its target price to HUF 14,000 from HUF 15,500 on Friday.

OTP lost 1.21% to HUF 4,405 on turnover of HUF 2.98 bln from a HUF 12.79 bln session total, about a third more than the daily average this year.

MOL fell 0.32% to HUF 12,420 on turnover of HUF 2.17 bln.

Magyar Telekom dropped 5.65% to HUF 351 on turnover of HUF 5.81 bln.

Richter retreated 2.76% to HUF 3,980 on turnover of HUF 1.50 bln.

The bourse’s mid-cap BUMIX went out 0.06% lower at 1,4.

For the week, the BUX lost 1.49% after gaining 0.54% the previous week.

OTP gained 0.57% after falling 1.02% last week

MOL rose 1.39% after rising 2.08% the previous week.

Magyar Telekom dove 5.90% after plunging 2.10% last week.

Richter shed 5.13% after improving 4.35% over the previous week.

Elsewhere in the region, Warsaw’s WIG20 was up 1.58%, while Prague’s PX added 0.69%.

Western Europe’s major indices were all up ahead of their close Friday, FTSE-100 in London 0.49%, Frankfurt’s DAX30 0.26%, and CAC40 in Paris 0.13%.