Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Although the opening in the Warsaw Stock Exchange was optimistic, main indices ended down on Thursday.
The WIG20 started at about 2,970 points, its highest level ever. In the midday, the index of blue chips fell to 2,935 points and it seemed that it would not get any worse. It did. The WIG20 index ended at 2,923.61, or 1.02 percent down. Hungarian BUX fell 1.6 percent, zloty was depreciating. The reason? Foreign investors focused on Western European markets. German DAX and French CAC40 were close to their records reached two weeks ago. Nevertheless, the WIG20 may rise to 3,000 in the near future.
Petrochemical companies were the worst performers today after they paced advances on Tuesday. PKN Orlen lost 3.6 percent, while Lotos 3.2 percent. Shares of each of them worth over PLN 100m (EUR 26.2m) changed hands. MOL dived 4.6 percent. Reuters agency said that CAIB Securities lowered its recommendation for Lotos from ‘keep’ to ‘sell’ rising the target price from PLN 45.8 to PLN 51. Orlen could be disturbed by the fact that it received court file from Agrofert Holding who demands the Polish company to pay EUR 77.26m of fine. Agrofert was to buy from PKN Orlen several chemical companies for CZK 3 billion according to the agreement connected with the acquisition of Unipetrol. PKN Orlen does not want to sell these assets because it believes the price is too low. It prefers to pay fine.
Banks had a week day, too. PKO BP, fell after Wednesday rises. Pekao is still disturbed by political fuss over seizing control over BPH. The European Commission supports the Italian owner of Pekao but the Ministry of the Treasure keeps repeating that UCI breaks the privatization agreement.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.262)