The second week of December did not bring us a lot of economic data. German industrial production in November rose by 0.2% vs 0.7% expected. The eurozone’s GDP revision did not surprise and indicated a growth of 1.6%. The number of applications for unemployment benefits in the US was higher that it was predicted. What is more, American retail sales in November grow by 0.2% vs 0.3% expected. However, this data did not affect the fluctuations of the major indices.

There were not many investors who complained about the lack of emotions in the first week of December. American and European financial markets were looking forward to the public appearances of Fed’s and ECB’s presidents. As a result, the beginning of the week was quite smooth. On Wednesday, the fed chairmen Janet Yellen, who was discussing the Beige Book, confirmed an increase of interest rates on December. In the wake of that, the US markets started to decline. To add insult to injury, Mario Draghi, the president of ECB, in line with the consensus cut the deposit rate and extended QE on Thursday.

The last week of November brought the increases in American and European Stock Exchanges which were carrying on the boom. However, Warsaw Stock Exchange did not take a leaf from the foreign markets and it declined again. The weakest part of polish stock was definitely the WIG20. It did not matter, if the largest companies presented quite good financial results or not. Their index, which primarily is consisted of companies from banking, energy and raw materials sectors, was still abreacting the political uncertainty connected with plans and actions of a new government

After a very quiet and uncertain beginning of the week associated with earlier terrorist attacks in France, we saw increases on stock markets. Slightly worse publications than expected on industrial production (a monthly downturn of 0.2% against expected growth of 0.1%) in the USA caused deterioration on Wall Street. However, the key event for investors was a midweek release of the FOMC meeting minutes.

Weekly comment MM Prime TFI  - November 16, 2015