BUX Index Rising to Historic High This Week

The Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE) share index rose in falling turnover this week, with the BUX closing at 55,254.39 points, a new historic high of 490.05 points increase, on Friday, 0.89% higher than a week ago.

Turnover on the stock market was HUF 37.65 billion, up from HUF 52.47 billion last week, with the leading shares, with the exception of OTP, gaining.

The Hungarian oil and gas company MOL announced on Tuesday that it had spent HUF 9 billion to expand its Csurgó site, building an oil storage facility with a capacity of 15,000 cubic meters, which will allow oil to be transported via the Adriatic pipeline to the refinery in Százhalombatta. The investment will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 7,000 tons.

According to the weekly summary sent to the state news agency MTI, Equilor Befektetési Co. Ltd., as expected, the Monetary Council of the National Bank of Hungary tightened monetary policy again by 15 basis points at its meeting on Tuesday, raising the base rate to 1.8%.

According to the previously announced schedule, the domestic base rate could thus stand at 2.1% by the end of the year. In the released statement, policymakers indicated that upside risks to inflation have intensified, mainly due to rising commodity and energy prices. Some of these effects may persist for longer than previously expected.

Shares by the pharmaceutical company Richter were the biggest gainers this week, up 2.69%, closing at HUF 8,795 on Friday, with weekly turnover exceeding HUF six billion.