Bad news came from European financial institutions, including French-Belgian Dexia, Fortis Bank, Hypo Real Estate and Bradford&Bingley. In the first minutes of trading, the WIG20 index shed 0.5 percent. It quickly dropped below the psychological level of 2,400 points to end at 2,334.21 points.
Commodity companies were adversely affected by falling oil and copper prices. KGHM copper producer was the worst performer among blue chips with 11.7 percent dive to the lowest level since March 2006. CEZ shed 5.9 percent, PKN Orlen dropped 2.4 percent while Grupa Lotos decreased 1.7 percent. Czech NWR dived 19 percent. Polish banks were hit as well although none of them has said it is in trouble yet. Getting fell 5.5 percent, Pekao lost 4.6 percent (while its owner UniCredit was suspended from trade on the Milan stock exchange after it had dived 10 percent), BRE fell 5.4 percent (while its owner Commerzbank dived 20 percent), PKO BP lost 7.6 percent. BZ WBK fell 6.7 percent for the worst performer among banks listed in Poland but still better than its investor, Irish AIB which dived 20 percent. Home building companies lost as well, their sub-index ended 7.6 percent. Polimex-Mostostal fell 9.8 percent for the worst performer in this sector.
sWIG80 shed 2.5 percent while mWIG40 ended 3.1 percent down. The volume of
trade was small and amounted to PLN 1.1bn only.