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Following Sunday’s general election in which Fidesz won a fourth successive supermajority, the forint started a slight strengthening against the major currencies. However, share prices of the most important listed companies close to Fidesz saw a significant rise on the very same day.
By Monday morning, the forint had strengthened by a modest 0.1-0.2 percent compared to Friday evening. At 7am, the euro was quoted at 367.51 forints, down from 367.83 forints on Friday.
The dollar was down from 333.18 to 332.63 forints, while the Swiss franc fell from 359.97 to 359.11 forints.
Compared to the beginning of last week, the forint is 1.5 percent stronger against the euro, 2.1 percent stronger against the dollar and 1.5 percent stronger against the Swiss franc, MTI reported.
The forint reached its historic lows against all three currencies in March this year. Since then, it has strengthened by 8.1 percent against the euro, 9.6 percent against the dollar, and 10.0 percent against the Swiss franc.
Unlike the forint, however, the share prices of listed companies close to Fidesz reacted with a significant rise to Viktor Orbán’s new two-thirds victory, G7 reports. Opus Nyrt., majority-owned by Orbán’s childhood friend and Hungary’s richest businessman Lőrinc Mészáros, and his related companies, opened with a more than 10 percent rise, and although the share price has fallen since then, it was still up 7 percent after a quarter of an hour. All this means that the company has increased in value by more than 16.5 billion forints after Fidesz’s election success.
Hungarian IT company 4iG started slightly weaker, up 5.6 percent, but since then the company owned by Gellért Jászai has also risen 10 percent. The latter represents an increase in value of roughly HUF 8 billion.
According to G7, the companies have been on an upward trend in large part due to the market expecting Fidesz’s massive parliamentary majority to end the uncertainty of government contracts at these companies for another term.
Featured photo by Zoltán Fischer/PM’s Press Office