BUX loses 0.7% on Fitch downgrade

The Budapest Stock Exchange’s blue-chip BUX index closed Friday trade down 0.72% as Fitch’s one-notch downgrade of Hungary’s long-term foreign- and local-currency Issuer Default Rating weighed on sentiment at the BSE.

The BUX declined 117.37 points on an active, composite exchange turnover of HUF 21.6bn, dropping into the red from moderate positive territory after Fitch Ratings became the final of the Big Three credit-ratings agencies to downgrade Hungary to junk status. The BUX fluctuated in a 2.41% range between an intra-session high of 16,506.69 at 11:15 a.m. and an intra-session low at the index’s closing mark of 16,107.72.

BSE blue-chips stood as follows at Friday’s closing bell:

Oil and gas company MOL lost 1.21% to HUF 16,300 on a turnover of HUF 1.67bn;

Drug company Richter declined 1.13% to HUF 35,100 on a turnover of HUF 501m;

OTP Bank lost 0.50 % to HUF 2,960 on a heavy, exchange-high turnover of HUF 18.14, or just under 84% of the BSE’s Friday trade;

Magyar Telekom gained 0.21% to HUF 481 on a turnover of HUF 1.05bn.

The BSE Big Four generated 98.9% of the exchange’s composite Friday turnover.