Prague Stock Exchange falls to its lowest since economic crisis in 2009
This Monday morning the Prague Stock Exchange (PX) fell to its lowest point since the economic crisis in April 2009, after losing 30 percent of value over the past month. Meanwhile, the value of the Czech crown has fallen both to the euro and the US dollar.
Nearly all of the shares listed on the Prague Stock Exchange saw a marked fall. For example, the shares of the Erste banking group lost nearly 12 percent of their value by 10am on Monday, while those of software anti-virus provider Avast fell by 9 percent.
“It is likely that we will fall into a recession this year. Our economy will be heavily damaged. The government should no longer be worried about the budget deficit and instead come up with proposals ranging in the tens and even hundreds of billions of crowns for stimulating the economy“, BH Securities Chief Economist Štěpán Křeček wrote on Monday.
He says the recent restrictions to businesses aimed at stopping the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus may be helping the health sector cope, but are having a very negative influence on the economy. The longer they are in effect, the greater the economic damage, which, according to the economist, could be likened to that sustained in war in some extreme cases.
The analytical team on the Patria Online, a stocks news site which is part of ČSOB one of the largest commercial banks operating in the Czech Republic, wrote on Monday that European shares have begun this week with a massive fall in value.
Those suffering the most are banks and airlines, some of them forced to write off as much as 30 percent.
The coordinated intervention of leading central banks has not helped the situation, they say.
The Czech crown went down by CZK 0.57 to the EUR and the dollar by CZK 0.16 to the US dollar on Monday morning, according to Patria Online, its lowest value to the two currencies since May 2017.
