The Czech equity market touched its 10-year high last week, but on Friday it corrected its strong gains. The PX-50 index rose by 4.0% on the week and closed Friday at 748.1 points. The blue chip PX-D added 4.2% to 1,868.6 points. Unipetrol was the only stock to weaken as it shrugged off 2.1% of its value to CZK 66.6. České radiokomunikace led the gainers, adding 15.2% to CZK 405.0 as the market responded to the SEC ruling regarding Bivideon´s intended voluntary buyout offer. CEZ and Philip Morris CR also outperformed the market with gains of 11.0% and 6.4%, respectively. Erste Bank rose by 3.6% supported by a major brokerage house’s target price increase. Cesky Telecom broke the CZK 310 level and closed the week at CZK 312.0, up 1.7%. Komercni banka added less than 1% to CZK 2,818 and was once again the most traded stock with a volume of USD 152.3m, followed by CEZ with USD 146m worth of its shares changing hands (259% above the 12M weekly average). Total traded volume reached USD 514.2m, which was 127% higher than 12M average.
As for this week, today is the deadline for indicative bids for the Bulgarian electricity distributors. CEZ has confirmed it will submit a bid. The Czech blue chips start reporting their FY 2003 results this week, beginning with Unipetrol´s main subsidiaries on Thursday. The CEZ supervisory board should decide on a new CEO on Thursday.
Jitka Oppitzová, Patria Finance