Energy Companies Led the PSE up During the Past Week

Czech equities, as measured by the PX Index, strengthened by 2.6% for the week ending March 16th to close at 1,506.0. The overall volume of trading on the PSE reached USD 1,029.3m, 18.6% below its 12M weekly average of USD 1,264.0m.

The performance of the PSE surpassed that of its other regional peers. The star of the week was Zentiva with more than a 10% gain. The stock was supported by demand from both local and foreign investors. The most actively traded listing was CEZ, which closed up by 5.2% and came in with the second best performance of the week. CEZ benefited from its ongoing share-buy-back program and high oil prices. Unipetrol also moved up, helped by the high oil prices. Both of the banks, Erste Bank and Komercni Banka, finished the week in positive territory. The real estate developer Orco lost slightly over 4% for the week, while the other developer, ECM, lost only 0.8%. Philip Morris fell to a 6 year low.

At the end of last week, one of the biggest US Wall Street brokers, Bear Stearns, announced liquidity problems, and it was taken over, during the weekend, by JP Morgan Chase.

This week on Wednesday, March 19, the textile producer Pegas Nonwovens reports its 4Q07 results; otherwise, we do not expect any other corporate catalysts.