The Budapest main index lingered around Fridayʼs close in lacklustre trade all day long, falling under the waterline in last second trades. It outperformed euro zone peers, but was also capped by the Europe-wide concerns over Greeceʼs latest debt talks scheduled for later on Monday.
Investors in Budapest were broadly unmoved by a rack of good news, including exportsʼ forecast-beating growth to a new monthly record in March, a raise of most macro projections for Hungary by the IMF, a sympathising nod to the central bankʼs easing bias also from the IMF, and reports that the government is gearing up to amend Hungaryʼs law on fiscal stability, giving itself more leeway to support economic growth in 2016 than the recently introduced rules would permit.
However, most blue chips performed better than the rest of the market as UBS raised OTPʼ and MOLʼs target price nearer to their present values than previously, and as a newspaper known to be government-friendly kept repeating for a second day that the telecom sector could benefit from tax cuts next year.
OTP won 0.17% to HUF 5,960 on turnover of HUF 2.12 bln from a HUF 6.57 bln session total, less than two-thirds of the daily average this year.
MOL ended up 0.07% at HUF 15,360 on turnover of HUF 2.24 bln.
Magyar Telekom gained 0.24% to HUF 419 on turnover of HUF 472 mln.
Richter retreated 0.99% to HUF 4,510 on turnover of HUF 1.63 bln.
The bourseʼs mid-cap BUMIX went out 0.23% higher 1,637.77.
Elsewhere in the region, WIG 20 in Warsaw was down 0.19%, while Pragueʼs PX rose 1.41%.
Western Europeʼs major indices were all down ahead of their close Monday, FTSE100 in London 0.11%, DAX30 in Frankfurt 0.28%, and CAC40 in Paris 1.21%.
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