Triple Bee Plus, Outlook Negative

Friday evening. Negative news, as the one from August 2011 on US sovereign rating downgrade, are issued at the end of the working week after markets close, to let market participants “get over” the news and avoid turmoil when trading is resumed on Monday.

Standard and Poor's, one of three main rating agencies downgraded Poland’s sovereign rating from A+/stable to BBB-/negative. The move was par for the course; it was likely to happen, yet not now, but when effects of PiS government’s fiscal and (affected by them) monetary policies would impinge on creditworthiness of Poland. The most astounding aspect of the whole matter was not only the change in rating, but also the outlook. The blow was dealt without warning (i.e. changing rating outlook to negative while upholding the A- grade). On the same day Fitch upheld its A- grade, while Moody’s is bound to review the rating of Poland this year. The saddest aspect of the whole story is that we are witnessing the first downward move in the rating in the history of Poland (it was last upgraded in February 2007 when PiS was in power and upheld throughout eight-year rule of PO-PSL).

The justification (thank you Michael for sharing) of the rating chance indicates at sound macroeconomic foundations of the Polish economy and points at unsettling political moves which disrupt the system of checks and balances, i.e. calling into question independence or empowerment of institutions whose role is also to hinder reckless policies of the government. The impaired constitutional tribunal, paralysed by the new law, with 3 judges elected by the previous parliament and not sworn in, is, according to the recently binding law, not authorised to hand down rulings. Politicians of PiS have openly admitted support for monetary loosening was one of the criteria in choosing among candidates to Monetary Policy Council. Not a scenario creditors of Poland would wish on themselves.

Ministry of Finance in its press release dubbed the Standard and Poor's decision “incomprehensible” (worth reading, as the content of the release holds water, if you turn a blind eye on their command of English). PiS politicians and befriended economists argue rating agencies should focus on performance of economy only. In practice, every sensible lender, to the extent permitted by law, evaluates conduct of their borrower. If you lend money to a private individual you should assess not only their sources of income and spending needs, but also their lifestyle (in practice often prohibited by law), because paradoxically a poor granny who lives off a tiny pension, but dutifully repays her loan might be more creditworthy than a lad in this twenties who has no family and earns well, but leads a lavish lifestyle, goes on a bender every weekend and throws about money. If you lend money to an enterprise you should assess not only numbers in its financial statements, but also its corporate governance rules, strategy and its viability, management and its credibility.

Your opinion of Standard and Poor's assessment might be low. The rating agency has discredited itself many times, yet the grades it issues are respected around the world and affect perception of Poland’s credibility. You might agree with the downgrade or not, but higher yields on Polish bonds will be a fact, also the Polish currency might stay weaker for a while. At the end of the day the taxpayer will pay the bill. I bet on (blue) Monday the WIG20 index opens 3.8% down from Friday’s close (partly driven by dire trading in the US and falling prices of oil and copper) and closes 1.7% down from Friday’s close. I also expect a slight strengthening of PLN, though in mid-term it is likely to be under pressure of general negative sentiment around the world, except for impact of local policies.

You can also ask who pays Standard and Poor's. In general those are potential or existing holders of Polish debt, i.e. in practice financial institutions who (at least partly) rely on the rating agencies’ evaluation in their assessment of Polish bonds’ credit quality. Theoretically, Standard and Poor's should attempt to deliver the best service to their clients, because its role it to attempt to protect their interests as creditors of Poland. The truth might be different, as the example of worthless AAA+ ratings assigned to junk mortgage-backed CDOs best showed.

Finally, is it the revenge of “banksters” for introducing the financialinstitutions tax (president signed the law on Friday) or for the draft of currency mortgage law presented also on Friday? The exact timing is in my view coincidental, but indeed the downgrade might be a form of warning (get your hands off the financial sector) combined with punishment. But on the other hand, if you want to borrow money from somebody, you actually must agree on some conditions and constraints set by lenders and if they perceive you as more risky, your cost of debt will be higher. The principle is simple, if you want to mess with lenders, do not ask them for more money, but reduce your debts. PiS government wants to have a cake and eat it – they will need to borrow more (I do not believe the turnover tax, the financial institutions tax and improving VAT collection will be sufficient to fund 500plus programme, especially in the current macroeconomic environment), and simultaneously ask bankers in and tell them to kneel. I know many can’t wait to finally see bankers on their knees, but such sight is too beautiful to be true!

Market update

Customarily, December on financial markets is hardly ever a season of bloodshed. Either everyone is celebrating, trading volumes are thin and markets are placid or fund managers are make use of shallow market to boost portfolio valuations before year-end. This year Santa Claus rally, if it is witnessed at all, will be at best considered a revival after the recent turbulent weeks.

The most frequently benchmark used for the Polish stock market its is large-cap index, WIG20, composed of twenty biggest, in terms of the market value, publicly traded companies in Poland. The index, with its historical high of more than 3,900 points recorded in October 2007 and this decade’s high of more than 2,900 in April 2011, has seen a few months of dreadful performance. In early May this year WIG20 peaked at 2,558 points, while on F11 December’s market close it dropped to mere 1,757 points, so it declined by 31% over 7 months. Raw numbers in theory should not bear a false testimony, yet what underlies the numbers might be biased enough to prompt market data recipients to jump to conclusions.

So before we do this, three facts:

- as of 11 December 2015’s close, WIG20 components accounted for 27.6% of the whole stock market in Poland, in terms of market capitalisation,

- the index is dominated by two industries: financial sector (Alior Bank, Bank Zachodni WBK, mBank, Pekao S.A., PKO BP, PZU) and energy (Enea, Energa, PGE, Tauron),

- the index is a price index, i.e. takes into account only price movements, but fails to account for return from dividends, while the yield of the index in the long-run is close to risk-free return or slightly higher.

The first arguments persuades you to think of another, more representative benchmark for the Polish stock market, the second should tell you performance of two industries might substantially affect performance of the index.

And indeed, the shares of banks and the insurer have been falling for the recent months, as valuations discounted imposition of financial sector tax, higher bank guarantee fund contributions as well as anticipated, yet for a while put back, conversion of FX-denominated loans unfavourable for banks.

Shares of energy producers plummeted because of their planned involvement in the bail-out of coal mining, extensive CAPEX needs, both factors trimming down their dividend payout capacity.

Shares of banks dropped by 30% since May 2015, shares of utilities declined by 40% since May 2015. Besides, two vital components of the index are KGHM, punched by falling copper and silver prices (not well offset by stronger USD) and Bogdanka, thumped by falling hard coal prices. No wonder then even if other 8 companies perform decently (difficult, if the market is perceived as homogenous by foreign investors), the index could not fare well…

The better representative of the broader market is WIG. While WIG20 retracted to levels last seen in April 2009, during post-crisis rally, WIG, a total-return index (takes into account dividend income), is two times higher than in February 2009, but fell by 23% from its peak in May 2015, meaning the Warsaw Stock Exchange has officially entered the bear market.

A justified question is whether the factors depressing Polish equities are of local or global nature. If you look at performance of S&P 500, no pattern similar to what has observed in Poland can be discerned.

The same if you peek at DAX30. Both Wall Street and Frankfurt contracted at the news of faltering Chinese economy, but both are still in bull market.

If the stock exchange predicts troubles in the future, it begins to do when the troubles emerge on the horizon and they did so in May 2015, when lots of market participants realised PO was bound to lose the parliamentary election and PiS, as they got hold of power, would tamper with the economy. Policies pursued by PO were also to blame, as they also had put forward a draft of FX-denominated mortgages conversion and they set off to exploit energy companies to rescue insolvent coal mines.

With hindsight I am grateful to the New Factory for imposing stringent trading restrictions on me which have put me off trading and prompted to terminate my brokerage account. Had the limitations not been in place, I would have several times attempted to catch the falling knife. With hindsight, I see I would have been worse off.

Moving away from Poland… Prices of Brent Oil (traded in London), after bottoming out early this year, have been falling since early summer, but recently they tumbled, best evidenced by the 9% drop within the last week. Excess of oil supply is likely to persist, extraction is unlikely to be cut down by OPEC members, while macroeconomic environment remains shaky. All these factors combined ward off the scenario of crude oil prices drifting to where they were before November 2014.

And a quick glance at the copper. Quotations of the commodity have been in the downward trend for nearly five years and had a tremendous impact on market price of KGHM shares (in early 2013 it trade above 190 PLN per share, today mere 61 PLN would buy such security). Now the Polish copper behemoth is nearing the verge of breaking even, while the promises of lifting the copper tax, made by PiS ahead of the election, are up in the air.

The Polish currency, at least in comparison with our stock market, is holding up relatively well. EUR/PLN pair, as dull as ditchwater over the last three years, has climbed towards 4.40 and forges ahead to break out from the range within which it stayed for too long.

USD/PLN, far more volatile than EUR/PLN, began its ascent in 3Q2014 and in early December 2015 crossed the level of 4.00. It deserves to be stressed however, that the driver of the incline is on the USD side of the pair. The American currency is sent up by buoyant US economy, dwindling commodity prices (negative correlation) and expected interest rate hike (FED meeting due in the coming week).

Unfortunately, I am not a future-teller and even if I were, I would not dare to advise you how to reap profits from what is happening on the markets. Given high expenditures in the offing, I am keeping all my savings at banks. But even with longer investment horizon, I would not bet on stock market recovery. Fundamentally the Polish economy is holding strong, but the extent to which it can be spoilt by zipperheads behind the wheel is unknown. By analogy, in first half of 2008 everyone thought given good economic situation, the bear market should have drawn to a close and stock valuations were bound for correction. Over the next months they fell by some 50%. What I am rather confident is that if WIG slides into 30,000 points (I doubt this is probable), equity valuations will be attractive in long-term perspective.

Meanwhile on the markets

The recent weeks brought some noteworthy developments on financial markets, some particularly worth highlighting and commenting on. Observations of how markets behave leads me to conclude my academic grasp of economic theorems is being rendered obsolete, while new paradigms unfold…

1. Interest rates

In early March Poland’s monetary authorities decreased the policy rate by 50 basis points, to (yet another) record-low 1.50%. In terms of historical levels of central bank’s rates, the current level appears hazardously low, however put into broader perspective, Poland’s monetary policy does not come out as extremely easy. Absolute level of interest rates is among the highest in the EU and oddly enough, real interest rates have not been that high since many years. Current real rate is around 3% (1.50% policy rate + 1.60% y/y deflation), while in the past years inflation-adjusted interest rates would not seldom run into negative territory. Do notice this reasoning bears some simplification, since inflation records are backward-looking while interest rates as of today refer to future periods and time mismatch exists.

The Polish central bank’s governor has also stressed there was no room for further monetary easing and over the coming months monetary authorities would take the “wait and see” approach. The only justification for such scale of monetary loosening is the ongoing deflation, which however is spurred by factors beyond central bank’s control. By slashing interest rates to record-low levels the central bank only adjusted its policy to evolution of price level in the economy (the question remains whether NBP would be capable of swiftly reacting to increasing inflation). Lower interest rates will not kick-start the economy, as it is expanding in a healthy and sustainable pace, consumption will also not be much stimulated, since propensities to spend, save and borrow are driven by several other more meaningful factors than monetary policy. Consequently, the most aggrieved by the recent rate cut are depositors whose savings do not grow as fast as they would like to be.

The other group hit are banks. They “suffer” (i.e. fall short of their shareholders’ expectations towards profits reaped in Poland) because rate decrease is followed by drop in cap on interest rates they are allowed to charge borrowers which is 4 times central bank’s lending rate, now 4 times 2.50%, i.e. 10%. Evidently banks find several ways of circumventing the regulation. Quite recently I learnt an up-front fee for a cash loan is on average 10% these days. In practice it means if you want to borrow let’s say 10,000 PLN you either effectively have to borrow 11,000 (and pay interest on it) or effectively get only 9,000 (but pay interest on 10,000). Banks will pass the unfavourable impact of monetary policy to their clients, as they will do with an increased deposit insurance fund contribution. The fund, intact between 2001 and 2014, has been recently depleted by 3 billion PLN to fund payments to depositors who had entrusted their money to insolvent credit unions (since October 2012 covered by deposit insurance system and the same rules of financial supervision as banks). The fraudulent activity of credit unions has been harnessed for full-blown mud-slinging in the current presidential campaign, yet this is a topic for another post…

Worth also mentioning the financial watchdog issued a warning to banks against evaluating mortgage loan applicants creditworthiness based on current interest rates and show clients stress simulations, i.e. how their instalments would rise if interest rates increased by a specific number of basis points. A commendable move, given currently granted mortgage loans could turn out to be a time bomb akin to CHF-denominated mortgages foisted upon client when the Swiss France cost not much above 2 PLN. Seven years ago Polish central bank’s policy rate was 6%. Unless a new paradigm emerges (i.e. interest rates higher than zero being an abnormal phenomenon), return of interest rates to such level within 25 or 30 years when mortgage loan is to be repaid, is definitely conceivable.

2. Stock market

Since taking up the job with the New Factory I am subject to stringent restrictions on trading, hence in order to avoid requesting approval for each single transaction, reporting transactions ex-post after each trade, reporting not executed trades and submitting breakdowns of orders and transactions at the end of each reporting period, I terminated my brokerage account and spare myself adrenaline by putting all my money into saving accounts and term deposits.

WIG, the broad market index covering almost the entire universe of stocks listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange, performed quite well in the first quarter of this year. It must be noted this index is a total return index, i.e. takes into account dividend income, in contrast to for instance WIG20, covering 20 biggest in terms of market capitalisation companies on WSE.

For this index I deliberately have chosen 10Y time interval for comparison, to illustrate for over two years the index has been in a clearly sideways trend. WIG20 is a price index, hence its readouts fail to reflect dividend income distributed to shareholders, which may make up a large portion of income, since many of index’s components are state-controlled cash cows whose dividends are a vital source of money to the government budget. Yet the chart clearly indicates those who invested in the index portfolio four years ago might not have broken even, even despite reaping several generous dividends.

Conclusions: the discrepancy between broad-market WIG index and blue-chip WIG20 index reflects not only differences in calculation formula but also the fact smaller companies outperform larger. WIG is hence a better business cycle gauge, yet not only because of its width. WIG20 composition is quite specific and not well-diversified. Banks have a large weight in the index, besides mining, oil and gas and electricity are strongly represented in the WIG20, making the index undesirably reliant on sentiments in a few industries and to regulatory and market environment having substantial impact on earnings of companies underlying the index.

3. Currency market

USD/PLN, here the pair purposely presented over 10Y horizon, has recently hit its 10-year high of 3.95 (some 0.05 higher than in memorable February 2009). The psychological barrier of 4.00 has not been even neared. Unlike six years ago, it was not the weakness of Polish zloty, but the strength of the US currency that drove USD/PLN quotations to exorbitantly high levels.

Polish currency recently has been amazingly stable as never before in its history which is well illustrated by EUR/PLN quotations. For more than two years, EUR/PLN has not broken out of quite narrow range from 4.00 to 4.30, while most of the time it stayed between 4.10 and 4.20. Such volatility is characteristic for mature markets. What also needs to be underlined, level on which the exchange rate has stabilised is neutral for the Polish economy, i.e. it well strikes balance between ensuring competitiveness of Polish exports and fending off prohibitive prices of imported goods. The issue of EUR adoption in Poland is also intensively exploited in the presidential campaign.

The divergence between skyrocketing USD/PLN and fairly stable EUR/PLN must lie on cross pair, EUR/USD. Quotes of the most liquid currency pair in the world dropped for a moment below 1.05 in the second week of March, thus also hitting 10Y low and then bounced back, yet remain below 1.10. The quaint FX rate movement reflects relative strength of the US economy and imminent monetary tightening (although Fed’s declaration interest rates will not be jacked up very soon brought appreciation of USD to a halt) as well as doldrums in which the EU economy is, compounded by increased scale of quantitative easing pursued by the ECB.

And for the very end, CHF/PLN quotations for which in my view the most relevant period for observation is three months. After shooting up on 15 January 2015, the Swiss currency slowly depreciated and CHF/PLN levelled off around 3.90, some 8% higher than before the SNB spun its currency out of control. For the indebted in CHF, impact of rising CHF/PLN has been well offset by negative LIBOR (currently near –0.85%) Polish banking sector’s concerted spread decrease (banks have not done it off their own bat, but have been coerced by financial sector watchdog). Mortgage debts of many households are now some 8% higher than in late 2014, yet their monthly debt service cash flow has not been hit.

4. Commodities

For sake of brevity I will focus only on crude oil prices that were searching for trough in second and third decade of January 2015. The subsequent rebound was a typical reaction of speculators to clearly oversold market. The scale of incline in the first half of February 2015 was impressive, since Brent oil price went up by some 30% within two weeks. In March oil quotations were very volatile, best proven by price fluctuations over the last two trading days. On 26 March oil went up by 5% in the wake of news of military action in Yemen to retreat by 5% on 27 March and wipe out almost the whole price increase from the previous day.

The question which naturally comes up these days is where the markets are heading. The only answer that naturally comes up to my mind is “I have no idea”. The most intensive period of my study of economics fell into 2008-2010, the run-up to the financial crisis, its most severe phase and early recovery. Near-zero interest rates at that time were considered a temporary measure employed to buoy up economies. Today, after six and a half years of ultra-loose monetary policies and no prospect of returning to long-term average levels of interest rates in developed economies one should ask what the current level of neutral interest rate in Taylor rule equation is.

I cannot even tell you in which phase of the traditionally defined business cycle we are. In Poland in 2000s we could witness recovery, early upswing, late upswing and downturn, in second half of 2009 we saw recovery, late upswing was in 2011, then the Polish economy slowed to record sluggish growth in 1Q2013. Are we now in early upswing or in late upswing? Needless to say, with hindsight it is easier to judge. But if we bear in mind stock market is said to be good indicator of future trends in the economy and it has been flat or mildly rising in the past months, economic growth should slightly accelerate. Economists’ forecasts in unison foresee a period of flat, but stable growth of 3% - 4% until 2017. Overly optimistic? Economists’ dreams of smoothed out business cycle fluctuations coming true? Time will only tell. One thing I am pretty sure of is that there might be many external shocks which may shatter all plausible projections. Keep the faith though.

Let's twist again

We sang it at work on Thursday morning. As most analysts anticipated, The Federal Reserve did not decide to launch QE3. We have already had two round of quantitative easing programmes, consisting in buying government bonds by the central bank to boost liquidity in the financial system. This operation boils down to printing money (in civilised countries it is illegal, so maybe the United States no longer deserve being called "civilised"). The first two rounds carried out between late 2008 and early 2011 resulted in nothing more than bull market on stock and commodity markets. The beneficiaries of the programmes were speculators, so again, Wall Street was better off, Main Street had to stay in the doldrums.

Funnily enough, the old adage that you should not play against the Fed proved true again. Okay, buying up lots of government bonds from the banks gave them a lot of free money that had to be utilised somehow, so cash created extra demand on financial markets But hang on. Was it not the mechanism of self-fulfilling prophecy that worked again? If everyone believed stock prices would go up if the Fed began to print money, would eveyone not buy stocks which would be about to go up in prices?

Unfortunately for some of the speculators, the Fed has run out of space for another operation, as inflationary pressures began to heighten and more and more members of the governing committee were against the easing. The alternative plan will now be followed out - the US central bank will be determined to change the shape of yield curve, to be precise to flatten it. To follow out this plan, Mr Bernanke will order to sell short-term bonds and from proceeds he will buy long-term bonds. This should help the economy revive and is mostly aimed at kick-starting the housing market, as interests on mortgage loans are benchmarked to long-term interest rates. Time will tell if the real economy benefits from this operation, probably the action was arranged in collaboration with the government which will find it easier to sell its long-term bonds and thus the Fed will put back the moment when the United States default, which is just a matter of time. Of course they may not default, but only thanks to high inflation which would reduce the real value of US public debt.

Markets' reaction was more or less predictable and more or less apposite. Scatts, sick of hearing about stock swinging up and down ranted about "moronic stock markets". His piece is an excellent observation from a down-to-earth participant, yet not an economist and not someone who has an in-depth insight into the psychology of usually irrational market participants. In a comment I promised to refer to some of his points.

Scatts goes on about higher volatility. It has become the order of the day that one day stocks soar, the other plunge, sometimes there are a few days in a row when prices move in one direction, than the tide turns abruptly. Firstly, it proves we are in a bear market. It is not only the trend that tells you if a market goes up or down, it is also the volatility. The more nervous market participants are, the more likely it is 'bears' prevail.

But in such days volatility can be a friend. If you are a long-term investor, skip this paragraph... My prescription for successful trading when the markets are wobbly is to swim against the tide. If stocks skyrocket, I sell, if they plumment, I buy. The other part of my strategy is not buying and selling in one chunk but splitting orders into tranches and placing them and different prices. The goal is to lower as much as possible the average purchase price. The task is not easy, requires patience and intuition and brings out some adrenaline...

Communication - markets today buy and sell rumours, declarations, reckless pronouncements, unfounded theories. One politician says there is a plan to stave off Greek default - stocks go up. One economist says bankrupcty of Greece is inexorable and the sooner - the better - stocks go down. Someone says a French bank has troubles borrowing money on inter-bank markets - shares of that bank nosedive... On and on... Markets, if they acted more rationally, would respond to facts.

And facts are that nothing is going to save Greece, economies in Europe and across the world are slowing down, banks will need to write down Greek bonds. I cannot see any point in putting this hapless moment back. Let it happen, ride out the tsunami, what is brittle has to fall down before it grows too big (it has already grown, too late), economies need to be healed from all imperfections that cuased the crisis. Putting some countries and instututions out of misery would make the best way. But most people want to avoid chaos, maybe cherishing stability is a commendable strategy, but at all cost?

Just like in late 2008 and early 2009 Polish currency was recently hit by speculators. Short-sellers are throwing more and more PLN on the market and zloty has depreciated notably in September, by roughly 15% against EUR and USD. Last Friday the Polish central bank and state-owned BGK sold some foreign currencies to prop up PLN. They managed to bring down EUR/PLN and USD/PLN by some 0.10 PLN within half and hour. But is any central bank capable of fighting speculators trying to decrease the value of a specific currency? Of course buying PLN in bulk can activate some stop-loss orders and deter some speculators, but only in the short run. I would sooner desist from any actions. After all Polish companies are not hit by toxic currency option as they were in early 2009. Weaker PLN will boost our exports and competitiveness and increase Poland's chance to get off the second wave of the crisis lightly.

The main condition we have to fulfil to avert dire consequences of the second wave of crisis is wise management of our public finances, as private sector appears to be prepared quite well for a slowdown. And here reality fills me with dread for two reasons...
In two weeks the parliament election will be held. I do not dare to predict who wins it, but...
PiS, currently in the opposition wants to bring public finances into order, but at the same time promises the moon. Its declarations are self-contradictory - you cannot have a cake and eat it, you cannot give something to somebody without taking something away from someone else, you cannot increase budget expenditures anc cut budget deficit... It is not said in their agenda how they are going to raise money for all the giveaways...
PO, currently in power rather leans towards realpolitik and holds back from making big promises, but on the other hand the PO-led government has inclination for tweaking with figures, so they will bend over backwards to avoid exceeding the 55% public debt / GDP threshold (possible, if EUR/PLN rises on 31 December 2011 to some 4.70), which would force the government to pass a balance budget for 2012. That would not be possible without painful retrenchment and tax hikes, yet this scenatio is much better than sweeping the problem under the carpet and lifting the threshold and consequent obligations to curb deficit and implement turn-around plans. I hope no matter who wins the election, the people in power will be judicious. I know, Poles deserve more, but more important is what Poles can afford than what Poles deserve. And if we do not want to end up like Greece, we should be guided be the former.

Next cut / Winter’s back!

This time the overwhelming majority was right (and I was, quite unsurprisingly – wrong) – The MPC cut the interest rates for the third time this year, according to the prediction – by 25 base points. These were probably strengthening zloty, mid-term inflation projections and slump in consumer confidence accompanied by a fall in retail sales that tipped the balance in favour of the doves. I’m wondering now if the forecast of BNP Paribas Bank on zloty (5,40 PLN/EUR in third quarter of 2009) is correct – perhaps it’s only the next spur on the speculation on our currency.

It seems that the winter keeps us in its grip and is unwilling to give way to the long awaited spring. Today the honour of being snow-capped fell to Warsaw – 10 centimetres of wet, heavy snow swathed and probably paralysed the city.
Mateusz (if you finally popped in) – lucky you, you knew when to leave for Greifswald to wriggle out of clearing up the yard - see below the one in front of my house today just at the crack of dawn (6 a.m.).


A tractor with a plough traditionally pushed the chunks of snow sideways, so I had to remove these blocks of snow mixed with the mud – it’s typical for Polish mentality – the road was made passable but the drives in front of the gates were obstructed by after-snow mud cleared off the road…
Hopefully the meteorologists are right and the winter recedes the coming weekend, although I’ve heard that the scenario that winter stays with us until Easter is still conceivable (but who’d believe Andrzejek Zalewski from Ekoradio).