Final Word from Friday, August 5, 2011
Several times a day, television and radio stations in the Czech Republic - mainly thepublic ones - spend a few minutes talking about the latest action on the Prague StockExchange. Rarely do the announcers provide any significant analysis, so the spotsmainly serve as free advertising for a privately owned (Austrian-held) company. Ofmore benefit to viewers and listeners than a rote reading of the day's stock-marketresults would be an analysis of how much every Czech pensioner will lose becauseof ČEZ's solar deal with Amun.Re, how much individual investors and mutual fundshave lost on the few IPOs on the PSE, where all the assets of Orco and ECM went, orwhether the PSE truly is a puppet show that is losing investor confidence (as statedby Michal Šnobr of J&T). Better still, Czech TV and Czech Radio could just skip thestock-exchange report entirely and give us a daily update on the Czech public debt.
Glossary of difficult words
rote - mechanical routine; mechanical or habitual repetition of something to be learned;
Amun.Re - a company with anonymous ownership that sold a major solar-energy project to ČEZ;
IPO - initial public offering (the first issuance of shares in a company to the public).