The American nightmare

After a few moderate weeks on the WSE, at the turn of September and October there was stagnation on

the Warsaw bourse

The lower US rates effect ceased to work anymore and incoming macro data from US economy failed to clarify the situation regarding the possibility of recession in the world’s biggest economy. But American investors became less sensitive to anythinginimical to US economy. Nevertheless, the state of the US economy is still a major factor for all stock exchanges all over the world.

In the second week of October, some good US macroeconomic data drove indexes up, including those on the WSE. Turnovers rose significantly and analysts started to claim that a breakthrough was on the horizon. Indeed, a few days later WIG-20 staked out  new territory by approaching its highest level ever. And domestic funds came back into the game, which helped the indexes too. The last but not least positive impulse was provided by the outcome of the parliamentary elections.

Turning to the development sector, analysts underlined that although it has beenout of favour with investors in recent weeks, it may yet become one of the best-performing of those on the WSE once again, as the future for developers looks bright. And their plans speak for themselves – e.g. Echo is planning to boost its commercial real estate portfolio to more than 1 mln sqm of office and retail stock over the next six years, JW Construction is not only about to expand its activity in Poland, but it wants to enter Bulgaria, after earlier starting activities on the Russian market.

Meanwhile, one of the biggest constructrs – Polimex - announced that it is planning a new share issue in the first half of 2008, a part of which will be spent on the acquisition of a company with a turnover reaching several hundred million z∏oty. And in this year Polimex wants to finalize the takeover of 2 or 3 smaller companies.

It’s worth mentioning that a unique debut took place in October. Plaza Centers is the first company on the Warsaw bourse which is also listed on the main floor of the London Stock Exchange.

    z (mir)