VIENNA (dpa-AFX) – The Vienna Stock Exchange closed on Friday with price losses. The leading domestic index ATX had been in positive territory for long stretches, but after the opening of Wall Street and the speech by US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, it steadily went down. The ATX closed 1.33 percent lower at 2949.73 units. The ATX Prime also lost 1.28 percent to 1491.56 points.
The ATX started with clear price gains, in the course of which it ran out of breath a little, but it was only the weakening opening on Wall Street and the speech by Fed boss Powell that finally forced it into the red. From that point on it went almost steadily downhill.
The US Federal Reserve has promised further interest rate hikes in the fight against inflation. “The restoration of price stability will likely be the continuation of a restrictive monetary policy necessary for some time,” said Fed Chairman Powell on Friday afternoon at the Federal Reserve Conference in Jackson Hole.
In addition, historical experience speaks against easing monetary policy too early. However, Powell did not yet give clear signals for the next meeting. However, another “extraordinarily large” rate hike could become necessary.
“We continue to expect the Fed to raise interest rates from the current 2.50 percent to 4 percent this year. Powell’s statements also suggest a “frontloading” of interest rate hikes trigger a recession,” writes Christoph Balz from Commerzbank in a first reaction.
In Vienna, the price losses occurred across the board. EVN had to accept the strongest reductions of minus 4.1 percent. The shares of industry peers and index heavyweight Verbund also slipped by a significant 3.3 percent.
Bank stocks, which had kept the ATX in positive territory for long stretches, also reversed the signs. Erste Group was down 0.5 percent from the session, Raiffeisen Bank International was down 0.7 percent and BAWAG was down 1.2 percent. Bucking the sector trend, Addiko Bank (plus 0.9 percent) was able to gain.
Company news remained scarce at the end of the week, but in the afternoon some analyst comments provided impetus for individual stocks. The securities experts at the Wiener Privatbank have revised their investment recommendation for the shares of Schoeller-Bleckmann (SBO) upwards from “Hold” to “Buy”, and the target price has also been increased from EUR 63.1 to EUR 76.1. Bucking the market trend, the shares of the Lower Austrian oil field outfitter closed 1.2 percent higher at EUR 59.00.
Raiffeisen Research has revised the price target for Frequentis shares upwards from EUR 28 to EUR 33 and at the same time left the “hold” vote unchanged. The confirmation of the neutral investment recommendation was justified by the strong share price development and the current valuation. Frequentis shares lost 1.9 percent to EUR 30.80./kat/ste/APA/nas