Czech equities, as measured by the PX Index, were up by 0.3% for the week ending February 1st to close at 1,541.3. The overall volume of trading on the PSE reached USD 1,194.5m, 3.2% below its 12M weekly average of USD 1,234.3m.
Strong domestic demand pushed Zentiva's price up by 18.3%. The generic drug producer became the most successful listing of the past week. Developer gained almost 9% after reporting slightly better than expected sales for the 4Q07. This occurred despite its coming in with a lower than projected NAV value. We saw opposing pictures in the trading in the banking sector. While Komercni banka jumped by 8% on the back of speculation about a takeover of its parent company , slid 7%, hitting a 3-year low as it continues to be under selling pressure. CEZ declined by slightly more than 2% as international accounts were on the sell side. Both and increased by 4.5%.
This week – on Tuesday, February 5 – the new listing VIG (Vienna Insurance Group) will start to trade on the PSE. The board of the CNB meets this week to discuss monetary policy. We are projecting that interest rates will most probably be hiked 25bps.