Equity 4 September 2019, 9:12am

Wood retains lead in ranking of Hungarian brokerages

Portfolio

Turnover rose by a double-digit figure year on year on the Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE) in August, with more than half of the combined turnover generated by OTP. As regards the battle between brokerages, Wood emerged victorious from the Concord-Wood-Erste trio this month.

Although the BUX index rose early in August, fears regarding the trade war between the U.S. and China and uncertainty surrounding the Brexit cast a shadow on stock markets and the bourse eventually closed August 2.4% lower than it started.

Due to the trade war, some investors were worried about deteriorating global growth outlook, while geopolitical tensions and uncertainty regarding Brexit all made investors more cautious. The German stock index fell 2.1% in August as a result, while the S&P500 index decreased by 1.8%. In the Hungarian bourse, duplicated turnover was HUF 405.1 bn in August, nearly 6% less than in July but 19.6% higher than in August 2018.

OTP shares generated the largest turnover last month, 56.3% of total turnover on the BSE. Mol was responsible for 20.2% of total turnover, whereas Richter generated 13.3% of the total and Magyar Telekom 1.9%.

Three other shares had a more than 1% share of total turnover in August, although the price of all three fell: Opus by 9.8% to HUF 383, Est Media by 22.8% to HUF 142.4 and 4iG, one of the hottest stocks of recent months, shed 4.5% and traded at HUF 919 at the end of the month.

Among brokerages, Wood retained its first position in August ahead of Erste and Concorde. The three brokerages, which have been neck-and-neck for months, managed 73% of total turnover on the market.