Miraculous fixing on Warsaw bourse?

The Polish Commission for Banking Supervision is conducting an investigation into alleged fixing of the blue-chip index. Near the end of trade on Wednesday, the WIG20 in Warsaw had fallen 9 percent. However, several minutes later the index rebounded 5 percent.

Warsaw brokers say that the new buy orders appeared quite suddenly and concerned several major companies, which usually have a huge influence over WIG20 index.

Among the companies whose quotations went up at the very end of the sessions was Polish fuel giant PKN Orlen. The company closed this unusual session gaining three percent even though, several minutes earlier, its shares were down approximately 10 percent.

This is not the only company posting questionable fluctuations, companies like BRE Bank, Getin Bank, KGHM, Lotos, PBG, Pekao, PGNiG, PKO BP and Polimeksu did as well.

The minor investors are shocked. “This is a scandal,” they say. Those on the futures market could have lost even half of their investment portfolio.

Currently, the Commission for Banking Supervision is investigating who made the orders and who gained on these transactions.

“We have established that the orders come from one brokerage firm. We know from which one, but we cannot reveal that just now. We are checking if there were any manipulations,” spokesman for the Commission, Lukasz Dajnowicz, told Puls Biznesu.

The Commission for Banking Supervision revealed also in September that it asked the authorities of the Warsaw Stock Exchange about the possibilities to introduce some mechanisms securing the market against similar situations, which would, for example, limit the possible fluctuation of closing bids.

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