BUDAPEST: Central European stock markets were mostly flat on Tuesday in early trade but Hungarian oil and gas group MOL outperformed, rising up to two percent after the open on stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter results and solid prospects for 2018.
MOL, one of Hungary's largest revenue earners, reported a jump in fourth-quarter 2017 net profit to 76.6 billion forints ($305.11 million) from 43.5 billion in the same period of 2016, and said its strong earnings expected for this year would fund rising dividends to shareholders.
"All in all, this is a very strong result," Erste Investment analysts said in a note. "In addition to the usual 80 forints per share dividend, investors could expect an extra dividend of 10-40 forints...MOL shares should rise on the news."
By 0844 GMT, MOL gave back some of its gains but was still 0.7 percent higher at 2,916 forints, while the wider Budapest market was up 0.1 percent.
Currencies in the region were modestly weaker, with the Czech crown holding on the weak side of 25.300, with dealers saying there was little momentum at the moment to push past as data has not been a trigger and the central bank looks to be on hold with interest rates in the coming months.
"I am not sure the crown can go stronger nowadays. There was almost no impact from good GDP (last week)," a dealer said.
Czech bond yields nudged higher before a scheduled auction set for Wednesday.
The Polish zloty was 0.2 percent weaker.
Poland's finance minister told Reuters in an interview on Monday that the zloty's recent strong levels were no cause for concern as it reflected the country's robust economic fundamentals. Teresa Czerwinska also said she expected the economy to remain buoyant.
On Tuesday, Poland published January retail sales and industrial output data, which underpinned a healthy growth in the Polish economy.
Analysts had forecast an annual 7.3 percent growth in retail sales for the first month of the year, and the data showed 8.2 percent growth. Industrial output data for January showed a 8.6 percent annual rise, also above analysts' forecast for 8.0 percent.
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