Last week was a second week of extremely low investment activity and the reason for this was of course a holiday period. New Year's Eve was a non-trading day across most of the stock exchanges. On top of this on many markets  last day of the year was a half-day trading session. Surely this period was not conducive to not only activity, but also variability.

Last week bulls have failed all along the line. Moods turned sour firmly because of events in Russia, where ruble lost chunk of its value. Apogee of the decline was noted when Central Bank of Russia rushed to help the currency and raised its key interest rate by 650 basis points to 17%. This supported the ruble only for a short period of time after which currency plunged as much as 20% against the dollar.

Last week was quite scary for investors across almost all global markets, losses were significant. In developed markets, especially Western Europe declines were almost violent. The DAX lost nearly 5%, and the CAC40 went down by as much as 7%. Investors in US lost less than this, however the S&P500 adjustment of 3.5% was also impressive.

Last week a demand side was in power on the WSE. The WIG20 rose by 0.9%, while WIG50 went up by 1%. This  was consistent with the performance of Western Europe indices. The CAC40 and the DAX were also up approx. 1%. In the US, the S & P 500 index scored seventh upward week in the row, ending with an increase of 0.4%.

Last week, negative readings from the US surprised markets. The only positive news was a revision of annualized GDP for the third quarter (from 3.5 to 3.9 %). Important readings as consumer confidence, Chicago PMI index and durable goods orders excluding means of transport were disappointing. These weak numbers did not stop Wall Street from further gains as weaker data are deferring interest rate increases.