Beirut SE (one month) Current Year High: 1,629.74 Current Year Low: 715.77 Lebanon’s bourse traded up in February, but only by a hair’s breadth. The BLOM Stock Index closed at 1087.29 points on Feb 20, up 10 and-a-half points from February 2 (but still eight percent lower than at the start of 2009). The Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) was typically low on action and, mercifully, on volatility. Solidere dipped under $15 in early February — its lowest reading since the middle of the 2006 war with Israel — but the stock retuned smoothly to values around the $16 mark. The center of market attention in mid February was Byblos Bank, which moved to convert almost a fourth of its common stock into Global Depository Receipts (GDR) in order to list them on the London Stock Exchange. Byblos offered share owners one GDR for each 50 shares. The 50-million-share move made
