STOCKS NEWS EMERGING EUROPE-Banks drag Warsaw,Prague to new lows

                                
 STOCKS NEWS                     Reuters           Regional
Stocks
                                
 Stocks on the move [HOT-RTRS]   Real-time Equity News [E]
 [.CEE]
                                
 REGIONAL INDICES
                                
 Warsaw WIG20 <.WIG20>          Bucharest Beti <.BETI>
                                
 Budapest SE Index <.BUX>       Prague PX <.PX>
                                
 Zagreb Crobex <.CRBEX>         Sofia Sofix <.SOFIX>
                                
 Ljubljana SBI20 <.SBI>         Istanbul ISE National 100
<.XU100>
                                
 
                                
 1115 17Feb2009 - Banks drag Warsaw,Prague to new lows
 --------------------------------------------------------------
                                
 Eastern and central European financial stocks retreat on a
fresh round of worries about the regions's economies, stoked by
retreating currencies [nLH321537] and a Moody's report on the
exposure of west European parents. [nLH423223]
                                
 Prague's PX <.PX> and Warsaw's WIG20 <.WIG20> fall to their
lowest levels in five years, down 6.4 and 3.5 percent,
respectively. Smaller Bucharest and Zagreb bourses also retreat
to fresh mutli-year lows, while Budapest's BUX <.BUX> drops 2
percent.
                                
 "We see local stop losses," one dealer says. "Things are
selling across the board."
                                
 Komercni Banka <BKOMsp.PR>, the Czech unit of KBC <KBC.BR>,
and the dual-listed Erste Bank <ERST.VI><ERSTsp.PR> drop 12.7
percent, while Hungarian OTP <OTPB.BU> loses 10 percent after a
brief trade suspension.
                                
 ""OTP has dropped partly due to the Moody's report
...basically the danger of a downgrade has increased," an equity
trader said, adding that the fall of the forint also contributed
to the drop in OTP.
                                
 Poland's top banks PKO <PKOB.WA> and Pekao <BAPE.WA> fall
6.5 and 7.8 percent, respectively.
                                
 "The additional weight is provided by the falling local
currencies, which mean that debt in foreign currency is
expanding," said a Warsaw broker.
                                
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 0825 17Feb2009 - Polish banks hit new lows on zloty 
 --------------------------------------------------------------
                                
 Polish financial stocks continue to retreat to new lows on
worries about the state of the economy exacerbated by the record
low zlotys.
                                
 Shares in No. 2 lender PKO BP <PKOB.WA> fall as much as 7.8
percent to a new all-time low of 21.32 zlotys and its larger
rival Pekao <BAPE.WA> drops 7.8 percent to its lowest since Aug
2002.
                                
 "The financial sector is not considered safe and the main
banks are liquid and make up a large chunk of the WIG20 index
<.WIG20>," said PKO BP analyst Hanna Kedziora.
                                
 The benchmark WIG20 index drops as much as 4.3 percent,
falling below 1,400 for the first time since Aug 2003.
                                
 Also posting large losses are Millennium <BIGW.WA> and BZ
WBK <BZWB.WA>, down as much as 8.4 and 9.7 percent.
                                
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