Fund managers most upbeat about Hungarian stocks since 2009

Trade war concerns and the problems of emerging markets, including Turkey and Argentina, cast a shadow over trading on global stock markets in August. Yet, the main U.S. and European indices managed to rise even amidst such sentiment, and the BUX index also closed higher than in July.

The outlook for the next three months has improved somewhat. Only 14% of the fund managers in Portfolio’s latest monthly survey believe the BUX index will be 5-15% lower three months from now than the reference value (down from 17% a month ago). The majority still projects a rise of up to 5%, but 29%, more than a month ago, believe the headline index will be up by 5-15% three months from now.

The local fund managers have turned more upbeat also for 12 months ahead, with half of them projecting the index to be up by more than 5% a year from now.

The indicator comprising all short-term forecasts of the fund managers shows that their optimism has increased greatly over the last few months. Actually, the 3-m index has not been this high since 2009.

As regards the index comprising the fund managers’ estimates for one year ahead, we also find extreme optimism, and the trend has clearly improved in the last two months here too.

The top picks this time are Magyar Telekom, with three mentions, followed by Mol, OTP and Richter (with two mentions each). As for the small caps, Alteo, which requested to be transferred to premium category, garnered two mentions, and so did Graphisoft Park and Duna House.

Richter is the only blue chip that is listed among the least favoured stocks.

• Tags:
• poll,
• companies,
• survey,
• market,
• equity,
• fund manager