Growth without end? – The Budapest Times

Written by Rainer Ackermann

The leading index of the Budapest Stock Exchange (BÉT) rose by almost 8% in January. The daily contract volume was strong with an average of 18.9 billion forints.

The leading index BUX ended the first month of the new year at 85,492.6 points. The capitalisation of the most important securities on the local trading floor thus rose by 7.8% compared to the start of the year. The rise was fuelled by renewed euphoria overseas and positive expectations regarding the resolution of geopolitical conflicts.

The BUX had already risen by 31% last year. On 20 January, the leading index reached a new all-time high of 85,903.5 points. Among the blue chips, OTP Bank again accounted for two thirds of the total trading volume, while the pharmaceutical stock Richter surpassed MOL in terms of investor activity. The OTP share also achieved the highest price growth of all blue chips (+12.5%), followed by M-Telekom (+9%) and MOL (+5.5%). Concorde narrowly won the competition between brokers with a contract volume of around 200 billion forints, ahead of the Wood brokers (just under 195 billion forints) and the brokerage firm of OTP Bank (just over 160 billion forints).