The coronavirus pandemic has affected all sectors of the economy, causing one of the largest economic crises in the last 100 years. Today, almost five months after the outbreak of the epidemic, we are observing a slow return to the so-called new normality, although the situation will improve in some industries.

From mid-March 2020, the Polish market has been gradually stabilizing. This can be seen both in the stock indices and in the approach and business activity. A similar pattern is also observed in other countries - the declines started in mid-February lasted for a month, then markets started (at different rates) to make up for losses.

The French and Italian stock exchanges, which along with the Spanish have the most difficulties back to pre-epidemic levels, have suffered the most as a result of the pandemic. On the other hand, the United States and Germany cope best with getting out of the crisis, which, compared to January 2, made up to 6 percent and 10 percent, respectively. The relatively small response of the US stock market to a pandemic seems puzzling, especially in combination with the avalanche rise in unemployment and the risk of a severe economic downturn. Also surprising is the high resilience of the Chinese stock exchange, which recorded relatively small losses, despite the collapse of the global supply chain, of which China was a key element.

As Olgierd Świerzewski, Executive Director at Kochański & Partners, explains, the differences in the impact of Covid-19 on the economies of individual countries result from different actions taken in the fight against a pandemic:

"Countries that are strongly interrelated in an era of globalization have adopted completely different strategies to fight a pandemic - from the initial abandonment of any actions to the sudden imposition of strict restrictions. The complexity of the problem means that the impact of a pandemic on various countries and their individual sectors of the economy is not equal," Świerzewski emphasized.

In Poland, the largest decline, by as much as 50 percent, was recorded in the mid-March by the clothing and pharmaceutical sectors. The smallest losses concerned the construction industry (14 percent), real estate and new technologies (18 percent each).

"The pandemic has further accelerated the already rapidly digitizing economic and social life. The new technologies sector is a provider of innovative solutions that will be the standard in a new, changed reality," Szymon Balcerzak, Head of Transaction Advisory and Analysis Team at Kochański & Partners, commented.

Current stock market quotations show relative stabilization in the economy and slow catching up. The situation is worst in the banking sector, which is still in crisis, which - in mid-March noting a loss of 36 percent - deepened the decline to 46 percent. Disturbing signals are also coming from the real estate sector, which despite a relatively small loss of value of the index is slowly recovering from losses, and their level since mid-March has been oscillating between 13-21 percent compared to the value from the beginning of the year. Smaller businesses pass through Covid-19 (almost) asymptomatically.

(WBJ)