BUX Rises on Falling Turnover This Week

BUX, the stock index of the Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE) rose in the four-day week, closing at 42,999.39 points on Friday, 808.26 points, 1.92% higher than a week ago, the state news agency MTI reported Sunday morning.

Turnover was HUF 52.32 billion, up from HUF 115.15 billion the previous week, with leading shares performing mixed.

In its weekly summary sent to MTI, Equilor Investment Plc. recalled that the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) did not raise interest rates, keeping the one-week deposit rate at 6.15% in Thursday's tender.

The commentary indicated that a target price cut had been made on OTP. Morgan Stanley lowered its 12-month target price on OTP Bank from HUF 21,200 to HUF 13,600, with the recommendation cut from overweight to neutral weighting.

At OTP's AGM on Wednesday, the dividend proposal was approved, the company will pay HUF 429.46 per share. Sándor Csányi, the bank's CEO, also spoke at the meeting, saying that the group's stability would not be significantly affected by the Russian-Ukrainian war and that there was no need to raise capital at the Ukrainian and Russian subsidiary banks. He added that OTP has stopped doing business with the Russian state and state-owned companies.

At Magyar Telekom's general meeting on Tuesday, HOLD Funds' HUF 25 billion dividend proposal was rejected, while management's HUF 15 billion proposal was accepted by shareholders, Equilor recalled.

Mol was the strongest performer this week, up 7.76% on almost 11 billion of turnover, ending Thursday's trading at HUF 3,000.

The BUMIX index of small and medium-sized shares closed the week at 4,138.88 points, down 12.98 points, or 0.31%, on the previous week.