The situation on financial markets is still pretty tough. The financial sector is still closely watched by investors. At the beginning of the week news spread that the another financial institution in the U.S went bankrupt – Columbia Bank and Trust. Also, the deal to acquire Lehman Brothers by the Korean Development Bank was blocked. At the same time, investors learned that the U.S housing market is still in trouble as existing and new home sales were worse than expected. Stock markets declined to recover in the second part of the week.

The news that helped stock indices to climb were published on Wednesday. Durable Goods Orders in the U.S increased higher than forecasts. Thursday was even better for investors as GDP in the U.S grew by 3.3% in the second quarter (second reading, first at 1.9%) while analysts expected 2.6%.

Stock markets are very sensitive to good news recently so they reacted strongly and regain the field they lost at the beginning of the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.9% (till Thursday) while the S&P 500 advanced 1.6%. Asian markets followed the path established by U.S indices. The Nikkei 225 gained 1.6%, similar to Hang Seng.

The Polish stock market did not do as well as global indices. The WIG20 finished the week exactly where is started. It was a very slow week, especially Monday and Tuesday where volume was at 460 million and 500 million respectively.

Adam Narczewski