News Parkiet

Equity markets

WSE imposes futures trading limits

Warsaw Stock Exchange has imposed new limits on trading on the futures? market after two bad orders caused wild price swings during Wednesday?s session. WSE authorities narrowed trading limits from 10 to 5 percent, restricting maximum order size to 500 index futures contracts. The move comes one day after an apparent mistake or an attempt to manipulate futures contracts triggered an avalanche of stop-loss orders. FW20H index futures fell over 100 points before bouncing back 250 points as daytraders tried to cut their losses.

Both the SEC and stock market authorities said they might fine BDM PKO broker, which allowed Wednesday?s orders into Warset trading system. Under Polish securities regulations, BDM could be fined as much as 0.5 million zloty ($130.000).

Bonds market

Polish bond auction fails

Polish government has sold none of the 300 million zloty ($78 million) two-year bond offering yesterday, the second such sale this week, Finance Ministry said yesterday.

Poland sold 2.6 billion zloty worth of regular two-year bonds with an average yield of 6.36 percent.

Engineering

Relpol sees 50 pct. earnings growth

Relpol automatic control maker says it expects earnings per share to grow by about 50 percent this year after posting strong results for 2003. The firm, Europe?s third largest relay maker said its profits will rise to 6.5 million zloty, or 7.6 zloty per share. Sales will rise 10 percent to 99 million zloty.

EU markets account for almost three-quarters of Relpol?s sales. Key customers include Italy?s Carlo Gavazzi, which sold Relpol miniature relay assembly line last year.

Commodities

WGT turns profitable

Warsaw Commodities Exchange, or WGT posted net earnings of 3 million zloty in 2003 after years of losses that almost forced the company out of business. WGT, which provides trading platform for grain and pork sales has more than tripled its revenues to PLN 5.8 million.

Equity markets

OFE funds cut new investments in stocks

OFE pension funds invested just 50 to 100 million zloty in Polish stocks in January. However, equity component of their portfolios rose 4.13 percent to almost 15 billion zloty because of three-week rally on the Warsaw bourse in the past month.

Market survey conducted by PARKIET shows that OFE Bankowy posted the highest monthly returns in January, rising 2.3 percent compared with weighted average of 1.73 percent.

Media

Axel?s Polish daily overtakes

?Gazeta Wyborcza?

Axel Springer?s new Polish tabloid ?Fakt? became the nation?s biggest daily in December, local media monitoring agency said yesterday. The German tabloid reached an average daily circulation of 536.000 copies versus 433.000 copies of Agora?s ?Gazeta Wyborcza?, ZKDP newspaper monitoring agency said.

Equity analysts say ?Fakt? could turn into a serious threat to ?Gazeta Wyborcza?s so far undisputed position as the leader of Polish advertising market, despite its focus on lower-income readers.

Media

ATM up 22 percent on IPO

Shares of ATM Grupa TV producer fell 1.6 percent on their first official day of trading on the Warsaw bourse. Rights to ATM Grupa?s shares were already trading on the WSE for the past month. The stock closed at 42.9 zloty compared with IPO price of 36 zloty per share.

ATM Grupa makes popular TV programs, including ?Świat Według Kiepskich? sitcom, a Polish clone of ?Married... with children?.

The company raised over 45 million zloty in a heavily oversubscribed IPO just before Christmas last year.

FDI

Hyundai to make a decision on new car

factory in March

South Korean auto maker Hyundai Motor Co. hasn?t made a final decision on the location of its Central European car factory, Polish FDI agency said on Thursday. PAIiZ vice president SebastiaIn November, the company narrowed down the choice of sites to either Poland or Slovakia.