The Prague PX-50 index gained 0.76% yesterday, to 421.60 points. The market traded with a good volume despite the domestic political news (Finance Minister’s resignation). Though the market believes that, as a result of the finance minister’s resignation, likely privatization delays will hurt domestic equity prices, the positive global sentiment on equities market yesterday led the local market higher. The demand was driven by local retail investors, later joined by London houses. CEZ gave back some of the profits of the past few sessions, though, and lost 4.75%, to CZK 100.44; the news flow for the stock is clearly negative and Monday’s cancellation of the advisory tender winners raises further concern. Total market volume reached USD 21.16 mil. on Tuesday. For today, we expect a weak opening, given further US corporate profit warnings. We expect some selling pressure on Cesky Telecom in particular, with major flow coming from locals.
(Milan Procházka)