BUX Up This Week Amid Increasing Trading Volume

The Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE) stock index rose this week amid increasing trading volume; on Friday, the BUX closed at 143,471.05 points, up 1.77% from the previous week.

Weekly trading volume totaled HUF 106.9 billion, up from HUF 102.8 billion the previous week; leading stocks, with the exception of Richter, gained ground, and Mol reached a new high.

On Tuesday, the BUX reached a new high of 143,889.34 points, with trading volume driven by the individual stories of OTP and Mol. Hungary's largest lender, OTP announced the acquisition of Luminor, the third-largest banking group in the Baltic region, while the oil and gas company Mol’s share price was boosted by the news that Croatian company INA – in which Mol holds a 49.08% stake – had discovered a new gas well in the Adriatic Sea with a daily output of approximately 160,000 cubic meters.

The next day, the BUX closed at another all-time high of 144,765.41 points, with gains in OTP and Mol once again driving the index higher. Overall, the Budapest Stock Exchange ended the week on an upward trend.

Among the leading stocks this week, Mol gained strength, with its share price rising 7.39% to close at HUF 4,474 on Friday, and its weekly trading volume exceeded HUF 21.3 billion.

OTP’s share price rose 2.02% during the week; its closing price on Friday was HUF 45,380, with weekly trading volume totaling more than HUF 70.2 billion.

Richter’s share price fell 2.92% during the week; the stock closed at HUF 11,630 on Friday, with weekly trading volume exceeding HUF 9.1 billion.

Magyar Telekom’s share price rose by 0.30%, with the stock closing at HUF 2,648 on Friday; its weekly trading volume exceeded HUF 4.0 billion. The BUMIX index of small- and mid-cap stocks fell by 0.25% or 23.09 points, closing the week at 9,326.17 points.