BUX Index Rose on Rising Turnover This Week

The stock index of the Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE) rose this week, closing at 50,083.93 points on Friday, up 763.23 points or 1.55% from a week earlier, MTI reported this Sunday morning along with a brief analysis of the week’s trading.

The weekly turnover of the stock market was HUF 79.06 billion, up from HUF 67.94 billion the previous week, with the leading shares, with the exception of Mol, gaining.

Equilor Investment Plc. highlighted the significant appreciation of OTP Bank shares in its weekly commentary.

Already the rise in the BUX on Monday was led by OTP's share price after leading investment banks gave a buy recommendation on the paper. The index has been more sideways this week, but OTP has still managed to strengthen, with the last time the stock closed above its Thursday close was in March 2022. On the last trading day of the week, however, the share price corrected slightly, which could be explained by the profit outlook following the big rise.

It was added that there were two news items on OTP this week. Firstly, OTP acquired a majority stake in the Uzbek Ipoteka Bank, closing the first step of the transaction on Thursday. And on Friday, news spread among investors that potential buyers had emerged for OTP's Romanian subsidiary bank.

On Mol shares, which suffered a weekly weakening, the analysis highlighted that Polish PKO BP Securities lowered its 12-month target price on Mol shares from 2,608 forints to HUF 2,355 forints, changing its recommendation from buy to hold.

The price of Richter shares rose, boosted by the company's continued purchases of treasury shares, with the company buying 27,200 of its own shares on Friday, at an average price of HUF 8,372.

It was also noted that OPUS reported a substantial improvement in profitability on Thursday, after market close. This could have played a significant role in the share price closing more than 4% above HUF 123 on Friday. On a consolidated basis, the company reported a net profit after tax of more than HUF 10 billion in the first quarter of 2023, almost half of last year's annual net profit after tax.

OTP was the biggest gainer among the leading stocks this week, up 4.32%, closing at HUF 12,080 on Friday, on weekly turnover of HUF 43.56 billion.

The price of Richter rose by 0.48%. The stock closed Friday at HUF 8,400 with a weekly turnover of HUF 11.37 billion.

Magyar Telekom rose 0.12% this week, ending Friday's trading at HUF 410, with a weekly turnover of HUF 491.05 million.

Mol fell 1.33%, with a weekly turnover of HUF 22.21 billion, closing Friday at HUF 2,960.

The BUMIX index of small and medium-sized shares closed the week at 3,420.81 points, up 86.75 points, or 2.60%, on the previous week.