The PX-50 index continued to drift lower on thin volume and a lack of any domestic corporate news flow. CEZ led the fallers, easily breaking below CZK 260. Even though it was the most actively traded stock of the day, volume remained at average levels of USD 16m. We attribute a substantial part of yesterday's weakness to the change in NMS to 10,000 (effective yesterday) as local market makers adjusted their respective trading strategies. The impact of this technical event will be short lived, however. Even though locals are looking to the upcoming privatisation of the two Romanian distributors as a key event, we believe that near term impacts on the share price will rather originate in the direction of global sentiment and secondly from market expectations for the quarterly results due later this month. In Zentiva, we saw decent size at the CZK 583 level, and continue to expect Zentiva to test the CZK 600 level in the near term again. Cesky Telecom's price prospects are entirely related to the governmental decision on the sale of the 51% stake; we maintain our generally positive view on the stock regardless of the method chosen (even though the timing for trading long positions obviously differs for each of the methods). Volume in the SPAD reached USD 41.63m.
Silvio Kotarac, Patria Finance