Trading Volume Up, BUX Index Down This Week

Amid rising trading volume, the Budapest Stock Exchange (BÉT) stock index fell this week; on Friday, the BUX closed at 147,747.91 points, down 1.94% from the previous week.

Weekly trading volume totaled HUF 129.5 billion, up from HUF 107.9 billion the previous week, with leading stocks – with the exception of Magyar Telekom – posting declines.

In its weekly summary, Equilor Investment Ltd. highlighted that Mol announced the Hungarian government’s voting stake in the company had jumped from 0% to 15.24%, with the number of votes held by the government rising from 8 to 124,920,950. This development stems from the dissolution of the public-interest asset management foundations (KEKVAs) on August 31, as a result of which a portion of the Mol shares held by these foundations were returned to the state.

In addition, Mol received further approval to continue negotiations with NIS (Naftna Industrija Srbije a.d.). The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury extended the license until September 30. The United States imposed sanctions on NIS last October due to its Russian majority ownership. In January of this year, the Mol Group announced that it had agreed with Russia’s Gazpromneft on the main terms of a binding framework agreement under which it would acquire a 56.15% stake in NIS.

Equilor also noted that the Hungarian government acquired a 10% stake in Richter; the shares had previously been owned by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium Foundation. Regarding OTP, the report highlighted that a new target price increase was issued this week for the bank’s stock; Romer Capital raised its target price from HUF 54,000 to HUF 58,000, with the recommendation remaining at “buy.”

Among the major stocks this week, Magyar Telekom shares rose 4.79%, closing at HUF 2,624 on Friday, with weekly trading volume exceeding HUF 4.9 billion.

Richter’s share price fell 4.11% during the week; its closing price on Friday was HUF 12,820, with weekly trading volume exceeding HUF 18.2 billion.

OTP’s price fell 2.30% during the week; the stock closed at HUF 44,940 on Friday, with weekly trading volume totaling HUF 79.6 billion.

Mol fell by 1.94%, with the stock closing at HUF 4,952 on Friday; its weekly trading volume exceeded HUF 23.2 billion.

The BUMIX index, which tracks small- and mid-cap stocks, fell by 1.29% and closed the week at 9,444.50 points.