Erste Bank, Ceske radio and Philip Morris CR recorded significant gains last week

The Prague Stock Exchange gained 0.7% last week as measured by the headline PX-50 index. The blue-chip PX-D index closed Friday at 1,553.8 points, up 1.0% on the week. All names traded in above-average volumes as more than USD 334.8m worth of shares changed hands on the PSE.

The major gainer of the week was Erste Bank, which added 4.3% to CZK 2,891 on no apparent news. Ceske radiokomunikace gained 3.9% to CZK 295, and Philip Morris CR closed Friday at CZK 14,001, up 3.5% on the week. Komercni banka gained a mere 0.1% to CZK 2,445 but was again the busiest stock (USD 142.7m worth of its shares changed hands).

On the down side, Cesky Telecom lost 3.4% and closed the week at CZK 281.5. The Czech government announced last week that it considers selling shares in CTel along with TelSource. In other names, CEZ lost 0.2% on the week, to close Friday at CZK 141.6 after trading midweek at a nine-year high. Unipetrol lost 0.3% to CZK 63.1.

As for this week, the lower house of Parliament begins voting on the government’s state budget draft for 2004 on Tuesday, and some domestic macroeconomic data are to be released, starting with PPI on Tuesday followed by retail sales on Wednesday.

Jitka Oppitzová