Burned by Two-Decade Stock Plunge, Poles Ignore Wild Rally (1)

The biggest stock market rally in years is leaving out Poland’s ordinary investors.

Time and time again, they’d been burned by volatile swings in equities and have found safety in cash. Before 2025, Poland’s benchmark WIG20 Index had been in a rut for most of the last two decades, unable to return to levels from the emerging-market boom of the early 2000s.

So as a surprise rally took hold this year, pushing the WIG20 stock gauge up about 45% in dollar terms, local retail investors have largely stayed out of the market and missed out on the wealth it’s creating. ...