Building site blues

At the end of March things cooled down a little on the global stock exchanges. The possible costs of the Japanese tsunami had been calmly analysed and calculated, while investors' minds remained focused on the need to spend the cheap money being pumped into the markets thanks to low interest rates The WIG20 reached a level at the end of March not seen on the Warsaw Stock  Exchange since June 2008. Even the final resolution of the open pension funds issue failed to knock it off course. Foreign capital was flowing into Warsaw in torrents, with the WIG20's biggest and most liquid companies being the centre of attention. Over the period the stream of money helped to push the WIG and WIG20 up by 4.97 pct and 4.57 pct respectively. However, there remains no shortage of real threats on the horizon: on April 18th the news broke about the prospect of the lowering of the US's rating by Standard & Poor. The news resulted in sharp sell-offs on the global stock exchanges. Economists and inves