PRAGUE -- The Prague Stock Exchange, hit by foreign investors' worries over emerging markets, dropped Tuesday to its lowest point since the official index was launched, provisional bourse figures showed.


The PX50 index, which incorporates prices of the PSE's 50 most liquid stocks, suffered its 11th successive fall and lost a provisional 3.9 points to 539.6 points.


The official index, which rarely differs from the provisional figure, was to have been released later in the day.


Local analysts said they expected the index would continue its decline in the short-term and would not pick up until foreign investors increased trading on the Prague market.


"I would not expect (a recovery) in the (coming) week -- the question is whether the upturn will come in one month or three months. There are no signals at the moment that this will happen soon," said Pavel Sobisek, an equities' analyst with Prague-based Zivnostenska Banka.


The PX50 was launched with a base of 1,000 points last April and apart from a slight premium on the first day, it has never recovered that level. Since then it has declined steadily, although it rallied slightly from its previous all-time low of 541.1, recorded Dec. 13 last year.


Sobisek said the global economic situation, and especially the Mexican financial crisis, had deterred foreign investors from trading in emerging markets generally, including Poland and Hungary as well as the Czech Republic.


"There is no specific reason for their avoiding our market," he said.


The PSE began trading equities in mid-1993 as the Czech Republic discarded the state socialism imposed until the 1989 fall of communism.


At first the market boomed, but by early last year sentiment had turned and the PX50 was launched on an already-weak market.


Daily trading on the exchange is based on a fixed price set at 11 A.M. and brokers can make additional trades during the afternoon.


Another factor which could spark a rise in PSE prices is the release of shares in some 860 companies in the second wave of mass voucher privatization, expected in March.


Under this system, citizens can use vouchers issued at a nominal price by the state to bid for shares in companies which had been privatized in two waves.


"The situation ... is not causing too much upheaval, as the market expects a rally with the addition of new shares from the second privatization wave due to start trading in March," said Bank Austria Investment Bank AG in a weekly report.