BUX recovers amid global consolidation

With tailwind from consolidating Western markets supporting for most of the day, the Budapest parquet chipped in a good performance, mainly on drugmaker Richter, in spite of the European market recovery turning sour late in the afternoon.

Winner of the day, Richterʼs intraday high, HUF 5,780, was a historic peak, on optimism over the chances of the companyʼs new schizophrenia drug.

"It seems investors have started pricing Richter to global pharma stocks due to the cariprazine (the schizophrenia drug) story, which is within reach this year. This repricing is under way and has not finished yet," an analyst of brokerage Concorde told Reuters.

Hopes that banksʼ mortgage business might benefit from the governmentʼs new home buying subsidies for large families helped OTP Bank.

MOL strictly followed the Brent, rising until Brent price rose, and sinking when Brent turned around late in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, fresh official date were far from good.

Annual export growth significantly slowed in November and lagged the eleven-month average, while import growth accelerated and surpassed the year-to-date average. So the November surplus shrank compared to a year ago.

Annual industrial production growth slowed in November, though it came in above market consensus, and decelerated even more in workday-adjusted terms, lagging the year-to-date average, with the first eleven-month growth also lagging that in 2014. Production in November fell again on the month after two months of growth.

Erste Bank forecasts Hungaryʼs GDP will expand 2.2% this year, with industrial output and recovering household consumption as the main drivers. That would be a slowdown from 2015 growth, which the government expects to come in at 2.8%. Following November data, the robust trade surplus should remain steady or even shrink in 2016 as imports are set to rise in the wake of rising household consumption. Industrial output growth may slow in 2016 to 4-5% from an expected 7% rise in 2015, Erste said in a note on Thursday.

OTP won 2.11% to HUF 5,897 on turnover of HUF 5.51 bln from a preliminary HUF 10.41 bln session total, about a sixth above last yearʼs daily average.

MOL lost 0.21% to HUF 13,950 on turnover of HUF 991 mln.

Magyar Telekom ended flat at HUF 405 on turnover of HUF 71 mln.

Richter advanced 3.13% to HUF 5,739 on turnover of HUF 3.70 bln.

The bourseʼs mid-cap BUMIX went out 0.89% higher at 1,640.37.

Over the week the BUX rose 0.15%.

OTP lost 1.72%, after rising 57.44% last year.

MOL fell 2.14% after improving 23.47% in the past year.

Magyar Telekom eased 0.25% after garnering 20.12% last year.

Richter gathered 4.38% on top of a 55.53 rise over the past year.

The BUMIX ended the week 0.45% higher after pocketing 12.99 last year.

Elsewhere in the region, WIG 20 in Warsaw was down 1.16%, while Pragueʼs PX recovered 0.87%.

Western Europeʼs major indices were all down ahead of their close on Friday, FTSE100 in London 0.24%, DAX30 in Frankfurt 0.88%, and CAC40 in Paris 1.19%.