Friday was an excellent finish to an excellent week which saw the Warsaw stock market up 8.9 percent and indeed almost thirty percent up since the beginning of the month.
The WIG20 closed at 1,260 on Friday, up 4.3 percent on the day whilst the WIG closed up 3.4 percent on the day at 13,895. This is the highest the markets have been since June.
What is different now is that there is a lot of confidence on the market that things are going to get better. The first is that a dithering government racked by internal fighting has been replaced by one that appears to be in control and has a clear path marked out. Plans to deal with the budget deficit appear to be under way. Inflation seems to be under control meeting all time record lows and in turn interest rates were reduced again this week. Although the minimum lending rate remains punishingly high when compared to other countries and is two and a half times the rate of inflation, there is still the hope that it will come down further and boost the economy.
Then the international scene is not looking as bad as it might have done. Stock markets across the globe are reporting positive figures and most have more than recovered the losses experienced after the terrorist attacks on 11 September. The American economy is proving to be remarkably resilient and GDP figures from the UK announced on Friday were far higher than even the most optimistic predicted.
On Friday the Warsaw stock market noted a very pleasing PLN403m turnover with 81 stocks improving in value and only 23 retreating.
Some of the biggest names made huge steps forward last week. Telecommunications giant TPSA gained 18 percent and media group Agora, publishers of daily Gazeta Wyborcza and owners of 14 radio stations advanced twenty percent. As always tech stock proved the most volatile but systems integrators did well. ComArch advanced by twenty percent, Computerland by 17.4 percent and Prokom by ten percent. Even KGHM Polska Miedź, the sixth largest copper producer and second largest silver producer in the world, gained 14 percent on the week, some ten percent being on Friday. This was despite falls in the world price of copper which means that copper is being sold for around ten percent less than it costs to mine.
This can only bide well for this week and further gains on the markets are to be expected.