The National Bank of Poland lowered interest rates to a record low, which hit Poles who were saving. As a consequence, they took out a historical amount from their deposits - in June alone, PLN 12.5 billion. Some of these funds went  to the Polish stock exchange. Effect? A crazy rally of smaller companies and the New Connect alternative market. "We broke several records," argued Marek Dietl, president of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The coronavirus outbreak is at its core here.

"We observed the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the WSE, first in the form of a sudden crash, and then a gradual but quite rapid rebound. The WSE, as a company, did very well,” Marek Dietl added

In his opinion, such a development of events contributed to the record turnover and attracted new investors to the stock exchange. As he noted, in the first half of the year, over 70,000 of new investment accounts were opened in brokerage houses. 

"On the WSE main market, the value of trading in equities in the first half of 2020 was a record PLN 131 billion. The sectors of biggest interest of investors were: finance, trade and services, as well as fuels and energy, which recorded a particularly strong decline and a weak rebound. During this period, the gaming, technology and IT sectors were doing well. For example, the index, which consists of gaming companies listed on the main market, increased as much as 65 percent in the first half of the year,” he added.

WIGTech is in second place in terms of value growth at that time, with a 22 percent of increase in value since the beginning of the year. Interestingly, the construction industry recorded a significant rebound. The value of the WIG-construction index increased by over a quarter (26 percent) from the beginning of March to the end of June.

According to Marek Dietl, the first half of the year was also marked by records on the NewConnect market. The value of trading on New Connect in the first half of the year was the highest in history and amounted to over PLN 4 billion, of which over PLN 1 billion in April alone.

(Business Insider)