Expensive oil, terrible data and war chaos are choking the markets. The stock market has had its worst week in almost a year
Friday's session on the Warsaw trading floor brought a painful return to the downward trend, putting an end to the short-lived thaw. The chaos of war in the Middle East continues. With rapidly growing risk aversion on global markets, rising prices of energy raw materials and very weak data from the US, global indices plunged, withdrawing from long positions before the weekend. It was no different on the Polish stock exchange, which had its worst week in almost a year.
At the close of the session, the main WSE indices recorded significant declines, although they were slightly reduced at the end of the session. The WIG20 index fell by 1.92%. Throughout the week, WIG20 retreated by 5.1%. and it was the biggest weekly discount since April last year and sell-off related to the announcement of US tariffs. It is worth noting that Polish bonds were still under pressure, with yields reaching levels not seen since June 2025.
Broad market represented by WIG decreased by 1.83%.and mWIG40 lost 1.93%. The situation was relatively calmest in the small-cap segment, where the sWIG80 decreased by 0.89%. The turnover on Friday was estimated at nearly PLN 2.48 billion, of which PLN 2.08 billion concerned WIG20 companies.
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Global on Friday the mood has clearly deteriorated, which was the result of overlap disastrous macroeconomic readings with growing geopolitical tension and increases in oil prices. The main cause for concern remains the situation in the Middle East – after Donald Trump's declaration of non-acceptance of any agreement except the “unconditional surrender” of Iran. Kuwait has started limiting production in some of its oil fields, and traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has almost stopped, news agencies report. As a result, the price of oil increased to USD 91 per barrel, reaching its highest levels in over two years.
The publication of exceptionally weak data from the American labor market (NFP) first hit the quotations of futures contracts in the US and the dollar, and after the opening of the cash market, the indices themselves.
Investors combine weak economic data with increasing inflation risk and get a recipe for stagflation. Friday's session on financial markets provided almost textbook arguments in favor of such a scenario, and what it means for stock markets the specter of an increase in capital costs and pressure on margins.
Global retreat from stocks
The Warsaw Stock Exchange was not alone in its declines.
The disastrous mood dominated the opening session on Wall Street, with the S&P500 and Nasdaq falling significantly by more than 1.2%.., and the industrial Dow Jones around 1.5 percent. Similar pressure was on European markets – the German DAX lost 1.2%, and the Paris CAC 40 fell by 1.1%. According to Bank of America analysts, it is It is the stock markets in Europe (and Japan) that are currently most exposed to the negative effects of the ongoing conflictwhich Kamil Cisowski from Opoka TFI also wrote about on Thursday.
“The phase of multi-month increases on the Warsaw Stock Exchange has stopped. In the coming sessions, and perhaps even weeks, a downward correction should be expected. In the case of WIG20, this may mean going even below the barrier of 3,000 points,” said Przemysław Smoliński, analyst at BM PKO BP.
Energy and construction under greater pressure
The energy and construction sectors took the hardest supply hit. Index WIG-Energy dropped by 4.3 percent, and WIG-Budownictwo lost 3.72 percent. PGE shares fell by 5.99%. The company shocked the market with the information about the necessity recognition of a gigantic write-off of the loan to PGE Górnictwo i Energetyka conventional in the amount of as much as PLN 12.05 billion. PGE's discount was the largest on Friday in WIG20. In second place in this respect was the leader of the construction industry – Budimex (-5.31%), for which there was a recommendation from Wood&Co. Saying “hold on”.
The largest banks with a strong discount, Allegro – the green island of WIG20
The financial sector did not resist the wave of sell-offs and WIG-Banki lost 3.66%. PKO BP dropped by 4.62 percent, mBank dropped by 3.2 percent, Santander by 2.56 percent, Alior gave back 3.5 percent, and Pekao recorded a loss of 3.91 percent, all this with high turnover, which alone amounted to PLN 483 million in PKO and Pekao alone.
However, the most traded on Friday was Allegro shares (PLN 350 million), which gained 5.87%. and it was the only rate in WIG20 shining clearly green. A not very bright light of this color was emitted by the Dino price, which gained 0.68%. Returning to Allegro, the comments explained that the stock was helped by reports of a change in OpenAI's strategy. ChatGPT will not close purchase transactions directly in-house, but will refer it to external retailers, which significantly reduces the possibility of traditional e-commerce platforms losing the market.
Among medium-sized companies (mWIG40), Enea (-5.52%) and Tauron (-3.21%) performed poorly. Interestingly, Tauron's depreciation occurs when it is announced that on March 20 it will replace Orange (-2.14%) in the WIG20 index. The increase in prices of energy raw materials also applies to coalhence the strong position on the weak market of Bogdanka (3.63%) and JSW (1.4%).
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