BUX falls, underperforms European peers

The European Commission named Hungary among 16 member states where a deeper scrutiny of macro imbalances was warranted. This can lead to excessive imbalance procedures.

Fresh data showed investment growth, fleshed out by public procurement, slowed in the third quarter in Hungary. Erste said investment growth could slow even more going into 2015 as EU funding disbursements drop and car manufacturers wind up their capacity increases.

Central bank figures showed deleveraging has come to an end in the corporate sector as Hungarian companies were net borrowers in October for the third month in a row. However, lenders' non-rate conditions were still difficult for the corporate sector, and consumer lending remained tepid.

For future household consumption, a surprisingly steep fall of unemployment to 7.1% in Hungary in the August-October period is less promising than at first sight. It was mainly due to the government's widening the fostered work programme, Raiffeisen commented Friday the reading published on Thursday. Adjusted to this programme, the jobless rate would stand around 11.5%, a much more striking figure, Raiffeisen warned.

Loser of the day was MOL on weak oil product prices in the wake of an OPEC decision to keep production unchanged. Low energy prices could hurt Russia's economy, and this outlook also weighed on OTP and Richter which are exposed to Russian markets.

Richter, however, shot up in final trades, probably again on buying its own shares as it did several times in the past week, analysts said.

OTP fell 0.13% to HUF 3,966 on turnover of HUF 2.65 bln from a HUF 4.60 bln session total, less than two-thirds of the daily average this year.

MOL lost 3.41% to HUF 11,900 on turnover of HUF 1.09 bln.

Magyar Telekom recovered 0.30% to HUF 339 on turnover of HUF 134 mln.

Richter advanced 0.89% to HUF 3,835 on turnover of HUF 658 mln.

The bourse's mid-cap BUMIX went out 0.32% higher at 1,468.72.

Over the week, the BUX was down 0.54% after rising 0.36% the previous week.

OTP eased 0.53% after decreasing 0.57% last week.

MOL lost 2.42% after rising 1.04% the previous week.

Magyar Telekom dropped 0.29% after losing 2.30% last week.

Richter won 1.46% after gaining 1.89% over the previous week.

Elsewhere in the region, Warsaw's WIG20 was down 0.32%, while Prague's PX rose 0.50%. Western Europe's major indices were mixed ahead of their close Friday, FTSE-100 in London up 0.05%, DAX30 in Frankfurt down 0.17%, and CAC40 in Paris down 0.12%.