Although Tuesday brought a temporary recovery, negative news from the Persian Gulf region and poor financial data from domestic energy giants effectively extinguished buyers' enthusiasm. As a result, the main indices ended the day under the mark, and the only real counterweight to the supply was the strongly rising Orlen, thanks to which the WIG20 result did not look too bad compared to the base markets.
At the end of Wednesday's trading on the WSE WIG20 lost 0.44%, WIG decreased by 0.59%. It turned out to be the weakest of the main indexes of the Warsaw Stock Exchange mWIG40, which lost 1.24%. In turn, sWIG80 recorded a symbolic loss of 0.27%. The turnover on the broad market was estimated at nearly PLN 2.3 billion, of which PLN 1.97 billion concerned WIG20 companies. It is worth noting that
nearly PLN 461 million concerned trading in Orlen sharesthe increase of which allowed WIG20 to perform relatively better compared to Europe, which was correcting Tuesday's increases more strongly.
On the Old Continent, the DAX lost 1.5%, the FTSE100 dropped by about 0.8%. Over 1 percent The Italian FTSE MIB fell. A slightly smaller decline affected IBEX35 (-0.5%) and CAC40 (-0.4%). On Wall Street, at the end of trading in Warsaw, the S&P500 index lost 0.4%, and the Nasdaq dropped by 0.2%. The day before, when Europe ended the day with strong increases, the US session brought slight declines.
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Geopolitical blackmail in the Strait of Hormuz
The main catalyst for the declines were again the events in the Middle East. Investors who were counting on de-escalation yesterday had to revise their positions after the inflow of disturbing information. The greatest concern was the real threat of mining the Strait of Hormuz through Iran and reports of damage to a Thai tanker while trying to sail through this strategic communication route.
“It is clear that the risk of limited shipping persists, and this obviously negatively affects the supply prospects on the oil side. Hence, most companies have returned to corrective behavior,” Mateusz Chrzanowski, an analyst at Noble Securities, pointed out in a comment for PAP Biznes.
Experts pay attention to no improvement in moods despite information that the International Energy Agency (IEA) supported the release of 400 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves. This is in response to the risk of disruption to transport through the Strait of Hormuz. The scale of the intervention corresponds to approximately 20 days of oil flowing through this artery, estimated at 20 million barrels per day.
Meanwhile the US president continued the TACO approach (Trump Always Chickens Out), suggesting there are virtually no targets left to attack. He also emphasized that the conflict would end when he himself wanted it to. Due to the recent pro-inflationary increases in oil prices, the February inflation reading in the US went unnoticed and turned out to be in line with forecasts.
Orlen as a “fuse” for WIG20
In a weak market Orlen's stock stood out strongly, gaining 5.59%.. In the face of rising commodity prices (oil and gas prices increased by approximately 3% on Wednesday), the shares of the Płock concern skyrocketed, acting as the main stabilizer of the blue chip index. Apart from the favorable macroeconomic environment, the market was supported by new higher recommendations and high dividend forecasts, more about which in the article “Record recommendations, waiting for the highest dividend and Orlen more expensive than Gazprom”.
Cosmetic increases in WIG20 were also recorded by mBank (0.06%) and Kruk (0.06%). The rest of the companies in the index recorded quite significant declines.
As many as 12 rates fell by at least 1%. of which in 10 cases the discount was over 2%. The prices of Budimex (-4.77%) and PGE (-4.22%) gave up the most. The shares of Pepco (-3.36%) and KGHM (-3.3%) were also under greater pressure in WIG20. By 3 percent Shares of Modivo and Orange dropped or more.
As a chronicler, it is worth mentioning CD Projekt (-0.64%). The company's shareholders set the result condition in the new incentive program at PLN 5 billion, However, this information was not enough to increase the price, and the plan for such a level had already been communicated and the company's share prices fell in line with the broader market.
The black energy series
In the energy sector, which became the largest burden for the WSE, there was poor sentiment also in the lower market segments. The WIG Energia index dropped by 4%. Investors panic sold shares of the largest players, because apart from PGE, Tauron (-4.82%) and Enea (-4.01%) also decreased. Enea's sell-off was additionally driven by disappointing estimates for the fourth quarter of 2025. The company reported a net loss of PLN 840 million, while the market expected a profit of almost PLN 648 million. The energy sector has been under strong pressure since the beginning of the conflict in the Middle East (decrease by approximately 13% in March) due to fears of a drastic increase in energy prices.
The construction industry is also under pressure
In the segment of medium-sized companies, dominated by the declines of Tauron and Enea, it also stood out negatively Mirbud, losing 5.69%. which corresponded to the discount of Budimex. In the sWIG80 index, the situation was more balanced – only half of the entities fell. The worst performers were Polimex (-2.68%), Enter Air (-3.4%) and Quercus (-2.6%). In turn, the growth leaders in this group were Mennica (2.86%), Mostostal Zabrze (2.7%) and Bogdanka (2.5%).
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