PRAGUE/BUDAPEST/WARSCHAU (dpa-AFX) – The stock exchanges in Eastern Europe closed in negative territory on Friday. The leading European stock exchanges also showed price losses at the end of the week. Inflation and interest rate concerns weighed on global investor sentiment ahead of the Fed’s interest rate decision on Wednesday.
In Poland, the Wig-20 fell particularly sharply by 2.46 percent to 1501.91 points. The market-wide wig fell by 2.42 percent to 49,350.07 points. Financial stocks fell sharply after a good run recently: Santander Polska lost five percent and PKO Bank Polski fell 3.8 percent. Bank Pekao posted the strongest sales, losing 3.9 percent.
The leading Czech index PX (PX Prague Stock Exchange Index) fell by 2.10 percent to 1220.29 points. Bank stocks were also under selling pressure in Prague. Stocks in Erste Group (Erste Group Bank) and Komercni Banka (Komercni Banka AS) each slipped around 2.5 percent. Those of the Moneta Money Bank reduced by 2.1 percent.
The Budapest BUX ended the last trading day of this week 1.56 percent weaker at 40,057.18 points. The index heavyweights Gedeon Richter and MOL, which were 2.6 and 3.2 percent weaker, posted heavy losses. The titles with the highest turnover on Friday were the titles OTP Bank (Orságos Takar És Ker BK ON), which, however, were able to increase by 0.3 percent.
The RTS index (RTS) on the Moscow stock exchange fell by 1.01 percent to 1275.03 points. Russia’s central bank braced itself again with one rate cut against the recession. It cut the key interest rate by 0.5 percentage points to 7.5 percent on Friday. It was the fifth downward move in monetary policy. Experts had expected the reduction./kat/ger/APA/tih/jha/
