Czech equities, as measured by the PX Index, were up by 1.9% to close last week at 1,611.6. The overall volume of trading on the PSE reached USD 749.9m, 5.7% below its 12M weekly average of USD 795.0m.
CEZ reached a new record level on the back of strong investor interest from international accounts and an upgrade by some of the analysts covering the stock. In just the past week, the stock has moved up by almost 4%. The new issue on the PSE - ECM - started to trade at the end of the week. The huge demand from retail investors shot the price up by almost 12% on the first day of trading (Thursday), but on Friday some of those investors decided to lock in their profits and the stock corrected for the previous day's gains.
Philip Morris was positively influenced by the acquisition news concerning Japan Tobacco and British Gallaher and strengthened 4.5% for the week. Komercni Banka showed a nice performance after its recent downward trend, following the release of its poor Q306 results. This happened despite the fact that some of the analysts following the stock cut their recommendations. Orco gained more than 7% and it was the best performing stock last week, outperforming both the rest of the Czech market and its regional peers by far. The Czech crown hit a fresh high against the USD. Unipetrol holds its EGM with changes to its Supervisory Board on the meeting's agenda. A good amount of macroeconomic data is expected to be announced this week.