Relief from the heat

After reaching the highest level in history at the end of July, the main WIG index suddenly dropped in the first days of August. There were several reasons for this, but the primary ones were quite obvious: foreign investors decided to cash in their profits – a pattern that was repeated on most international stock markets. The aversion to investing on stock exchanges all over the world arose due to nervousness about an imminent FED decision over US interest rates, which was eventually made on August 8th. Investors breathed a sigh of relief when interest rates were not hiked up and felt able to return to stock markets. Not for long though – the promising rebound of the market was reversed by the alarming news from London. Some investors succumbed to their emotions and sold their shares, despite no terrorist attack taking place. It was in these circumstances that Polish companies published their results – and analysts claim investors had mixed feelings after seeing the financial data released by companies. It’s still unclear which way the indexes will move.

Taking a look at the construction sector, it’s worth  underlining that on July 27th, the WIG-BUD index hit an historic high. A sign of the improvement in this sector is also the forthcoming entry of Polimex to the prestigious WIG 20 index, scheduled for September 15th. As for the second quarter results, experts say that construction companies performed well – among the biggest construction firms only Polnord suffered a loss: PLN 3.4 mln. But the future is quite interesting for the firm – Polnord will become another pillar of the Prokom group, earmarked for housing development. Polimex earned over PLN 23 mln (+23 pct y/y) in Q2 and enjoyed noticeably high margins. The company is expecting its group revenues to reach EUR 1 bln within 3 years and is hoping to buy a developer worth in the region of PLN 100–150 mln.