Capital market

The situation in the Warsaw Stock Exchange was fairly unstable during the entire 2013. In the first half of the year the share prices grew considerably. In the second half of the period, however, and in December in particular, indexes plummeted due to changes in the retirement system proposed by the government. Consequently, indices of the Warsaw Stock Exchange were only slightly changed at the end of the year. The key Warsaw Stock Exchange index, WIG, increased by 8.1%, while WIG20 dropped by 7.1%. Indexes of smaller companies, however, i.e. mWIG40 and sWIG80 grew considerably - by 31.1% and 37.3%, respectively. Holders of bank shares also enjoyed high return on investment, as WIG-banki, a sector sub-index, grew by 21%.

At the end of December 2013 the value of Polish firms listed at the Warsaw Stock Exchange reached PLN 593.5 billion and was by 13.4% higher than in December 2012. In 2013 companies chose the capital market as the source of financing growth more often than a year before. 23 companies debuted on the Stock Exchange, as compared to 19 IPOs in 2012.

The number of investors also grew significantly. In 2013 shares worth PLN 256.1 billion changed hands as result of session transactions, i.e. by 26.3% more than in the previous year.

Over-the-counter trading systems, i.e. an alternative share market for companies with high potential of growth NewConnect and the bond market Catalyst were growing fast as well. For instance, the value of debt securities of 182 issuers traded on the Catalyst market reached PLN 619.2 billion at the end of December 2013,as compared to PLN 567.4 billion of debt securities quoted by 163 issuers.

In 2013 the Warsaw Stock Exchange introduced a new index WIG30, which will replace WIG20, and it expanded the range of available instruments to include new structured products, interest rate contracts and implemented a new multiplier for WIG20 contracts.

The year 2013 was successful investment fund managers. At the end of 2013 the value of investment fund assets amounted to PLN 189.0 billion, having grown by 29.6% during the year. Growth rate of private equity funds turned out to be the highest, accounting for PLN 23.6 billion out of PLN 43.2 billion of the entire growth of fund assets. In 2013 the average rate of return from funds investing in the Polish market ranged from 1.5% for debt funds investing in Polish treasury securities to 31.1% for equity funds investing in stocks of small and medium enterprises¹.

Index:
1 Source: AnalizyOnLine “Investment funds performance (December 2013)”.