Czech equities, as measured by the PX Index, were off by 1.6% for the week to close at 1,536.7. The overall volume of trading on the PSE reached USD 2,319.8m, 91.7% above its 12M weekly average of USD 1,210.3m.
The market recovered during the last two trading days from the losses that occurred at the beginning of the week. The huge rally on Thursday (January 24), when the main PX Index jumped by 8.4%, was the biggest increase in the history of the market. The FED surprisingly cut interest rates by 75bps at an extraordinary meeting to bring the rate down to 3.5%. There are expectations that the FED will lower rates further (even at this week's meeting). The best performing stock during the past week was the developer ECM, which gained 2.2% as was being well bid. CEZ closed almost flat for the week, supported by analysts’ upgrades. Komercni banka was on suspended from trading on Thursday after news broke that its parent company, Societe Generale, had reported losses due to fraud of EUR 4.9bn. Erste Bank suffered from an underweight in analysts' recommendations. The worst performing stock during the past week was Zentiva, which declined by 8.1%.
This week, the real estate developer Orco releases its 4Q07 sales. We expect revenues to reach EUR 55.2m - down 40% y/y. It is also possible that the company will announce its NAV figures, as of December 31, 2007.