Bouncing back

The main index's sterling performance in Q2 saw it retrace its 2009 losses, gaining 5.1 percent since January. The WIG20 remained -0.7 percent down on the year so far.

But the indices' recent growth is likely to hit a speed bump soon. "Over the course of the next two months I expect a fall or cooling," said Grzegorz Olejek, market analyst with brokerage ING Securities. In his opinion, however, this won't be pronounced and the WIG may even see overall growth this year.

Among the constituents of the blue-chip index, the biggest casualty in the first half of the year was PKO BP, which saw a fall of around 26.23 percent. Copper miner KGHM, meanwhile, saw its stock price rise by 194.81 percent over that period, making it the biggest winner among WIG20 stocks and second biggest on the bourse, after Austrian developer Immoeast.

"With KGHM this came because of the growth in copper prices and relatively good Chinese economy. In the case of Immoeast I would view this as speculative growth because previously its stock fell rather strongly," Olejek commented. Regarding PKO BP, he put its losses down to general global breakdown of the financial sector as well as to the expectation of share issues.

During the first half of the year six firms joined the WSE and two de-listed. Moreover, according to a representative of the bourse, nine firms are in various stages of insolvency proceedings but are still being traded. These include furniture maker Swarzędz, clothier Monnari and foundry Odlewnie Polskie.

However, Olejek doesn't expect many more firms to de-list this year. "It's most likely that the worst is behind us," he said.

E Blake Berry