The PX-50 closed down 0.93% at 842.5 points on Thursday. Losers were led by Cesky Telecom, which gave up 3.2% after the recent changes in Eurotel's management. The IT minister's comments that these changes may hurt the CT privatization also sparked further sell offs and weakened the share price. The weakness did not ease even after Cesky Telecom reported solid Q1 results. Toward the end of the session, though, we saw sizeable buying at the CZK 344-346 level. Komercni banka gave up 2% of its value - we attribute its weakness to more cautious sentiment across emerging markets in recent days. Unipetrol continues to outshine the rest of the market; we see buying interest from institutional investors at the CZK 80 level ahead of an obligatory buyout tender. Philip Morris CR added over 2% as investors fled to invest into high-dividend-yielding stocks. We are focusing today on Komercni banka and CEZ results and we generally expect to see rather positive outcomes. Volume in the SPAD systém reached EUR 56.6m.
Separately, as expected, the Czech National Bank's board of governors left its two-week repo rate unchanged at 2% yesterday.
Also separately, the Czech Republic and other nine countries become new EU members tomorrow.
Milan Prochazka