Czech equities, as measured by the PX Index, were up by 1.2% for the week to close at 1,588.9. The overall volume of trading on the PSE reached USD 206.9m, 57.3% below its 12M weekly average of USD 484.6m.
Activity was quite low as investors mostly stayed out of the market between Christmas and New Year's Day. The most actively traded stock was CEZ, as usual. CEZ closed higher despite the fact that the new coalition agreement doesn’t count with respect to breaking the mining limits nor does it support any new nuclear capacity. We saw decent trading in Telefonica O2 CR and Komercni Banka. Unipetrol added a nice 3.3% after news that the company managed to resume production at its Ceska Rafinerska unit sooner that expected. There was a limited supply of Zentiva, ECM and Unipetrol. At the beginning of this week, the Ministry of Finance will announced the deficit numbers for the 2006 Budget. We lack any other main corporate catalysts.