The Budapest parquet sank for a fourth consecutive day for lack of inspiring local news while the global environment turned for the worse with manufacturing PMIs grounding to a halt in the euro zone and China.

Hungary’s November manufacturing PMI came in at a healthy 55.1 points in November, but just slightly moving from 55.0 points in October, leading, however, to more bets for further base rate cuts in Hungary being taken off the table.

Another reason for the general pessimism lately was highlighted by a fresh forecast of local think tank GKI, which projected a steep slowing of GDP growth for next year on Monday. GKI explained the expected slowdown by a possible lack of investment growth next year due to the run-out of levers including mandatory utilities price cuts and EU funds, global political and economic uncertainties, and Hungary’s worsening image abroad because of anti-market economic policies suspected with corruption.

While plunging oil prices drove down the Russian rouble, Hungarian blue chips with exposure to Russian markets continued to be hit more severely than the rest of the market.

OTP fell 1.34% to HUF 3,913 on turnover of HUF 3.39 bln from a HUF 5.26 bln session total, two-thirds of the daily average this year.

MOL lost 1.01% to HUF 11,780 on turnover of HUF 729 mln.

Magyar Telekom dropped 1.47% to HUF 334 on turnover of HUF 223 mln.

Richter retreated 2.74% to HUF 3,730 on turnover of HUF 789 mln.

The bourse’s mid-cap BUMIX went out 0.23% lower at 1,465.33. 

Elsewhere in the region, Warsaw’s WIG20 was up 0.12%, while Prague’s PX rose 0.01%.Western Europe’s major indices were all down ahead of their close Monday, FTSE-100 in London 1.16%, DAX30 in Frankfurt 0.35%, and CAC40 in Paris 0.46%.