Beirut SE: Shuaa (1 month)
Current Year High: 3,423.90 Current Year Low: 1,761.53
The Beirut Stock Exchange was impacted by the latest act in the national political parody, titled approximately “how to form a cabinet.” Shares stayed resilient and Blom Bank’s BSI closed at 2031.83 points on June 26, a healthy improvement of 35.3% from the start of the year. Trading followed sideways trends for a number of stocks, Solidere closed the session above $36 per share, Blom and Audi GDRs closed at $103 and $99.30, respectively, and the common shares of banks Audi, BoB, and Byblos showed slight gains when compared with the end of May while BLC was unchanged and Blom listed shares appreciated by 13.8% between May 28 and June 26.
Amman SE (1 month)
Current Year High: 5,043.72 Current Year Low: 3,003.07
The Amman Stock Exchange moved up in early June as if Jordan were nowhere near Asia and immune to any contagion from Far Eastern or Western stock market tremors. The ASE market index crossed one of those famed psychological barriers by climbing beyond 5,000 points June 18 to a new year high of 5043.72 points the following day. Notably, this particular barrier is rather fresh for the Jordanian environment as it derives from the ASE’s new free float index which replaced the weighed index effective from June 8. In the last week of the review period, profit taking and selling moods ahead of the H1 results season erased 395 points from the index which closed at 4648.91 on June 26. Industry stocks led the market and climbed more than 29% between June 1 and 18. APC and JPMC were the focus of sellers after June 18, however, making the insurance sub-index the month’s best gainer, up 15.7%. For easier evaluation of the bourse’s movement in June, the index peak on June 18 was equal to 11,093.9 points in the weighed index.
Abu Dhabi SM (1 month)
Current Year High: 5,148.49 Current Year Low: 3,327.86
The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange fared better than the Dubai bourse in June but the largest UAE bourse couldn’t maintain mid-June price levels and the index dropped 1.6% in the course of the month. It closed at 4,957.21 points on June 26, receding below the 5,000 points line after trading above it between late May and June 22. The banking and consumer sub-indices outperformed the general index and ended the review period 3.1% and 1.8% up. Energy was the biggest loser, giving up almost 16% by market close on June 26. Dana Gas weakened to below $0.54 the share but the bigger energy loser was Taqa, which went through a dispute over trading rights for its convertible bonds and slid from $1.09 on June 10 to $0.78 on June 26. In structural terms, the UAE stock exchanges hope for increased listing by family-owned firms as the government announced that minimum flotation requirements for IPOs will be lowered to 25-30% from previously 55%.
Dubai FM (1 month)
Current Year High: 6,291.87 Current Year Low: 3,968.09
The DFM index line had that downcast look in June that comes from dropping more than any other GCC market in this month. The first four sessions were alright but then things went south and the DFM general index closed at 5,432.43 points on June 26, down 4.3% from its reading at the end of May. With all sectors in the red, banking and insurance did better than other sub-indices whereas consumer staples severely underperformed and ended the period 22.2% down. The UAE, among whose main drawing points for business is the stable political and security environment had a fright minute from a warning by the British Foreign Office that terrorism is now a high danger for the British — and by implication all other — expatriates living in Dubai and other parts of the country. On the day after the terrorism alert was splashed across global media the DFM went down but only by a blip of three quarters of one index point, barely noticeable in the overall drag.
Kuwait SE (1 month)
Current Year High: 15,654.80 Current Year Low: 12,039.00
The Kuwait Stock Exchange carried its uptrend to further highs, making it six months of consecutive index gains. With a 3.7% rise in the general index from the start of June until its close at 15,562.60 points on June 26, June was even more kind to Kuwaiti investors than each of the two previous months in terms of absolute point gains. The index scaled a new historic high at 15,654.80 on June 24 before dropping a bit ahead of the summer and the results season for the first half of 2008. The banking sector paced market gains early in the month but by the second half of June, industrial and real estate values were the star gainers, respectively adding 8.6% and 7.7% on the month. First Dubai Real Estate Development Co was late June’s top gainer on the KSE, climbing 29% on the week and 9.1% on the day to close June 26 at $4.53. The stock was already on the up when the board on June 25 adopted a proposal to increase the capital by about four-and-a-half times, to $378 million. The increase, if approved by shareholders, will include a 200% bonus shares issue.
Saudi Arabia SE (1 month)
Current Year High: 11,895.47 Current Year Low: 6,900.50
The Tadawul Index traded sideways but managed a small gain in June and closed at 9581.34 points on June 26. The Saudi Stock Exchange is still down more than 14% since the start of the year but looks much better when one takes a glance to the east where stock market indices on the other side of Asia have been ravaged in the first half of 2008, losing up to 54% in the year to date. In the second half of June, the Saudi hotels, insurance, and banking sectors booked gains while the industrial and retail sub-indices trailed below the market trend. At the end of the review period, news from foiled terror plans for attacking oil facilities at Yanbu and in the Eastern Province caused some instinctive selling that added a downward nudge to the monthly picture.
Muscat SM (1 month)
Current Year High: 12,109.10 Current Year Low: 6,309.94
The Muscat Securities Market had a slight net loss of 0.6% when comparing its close of 11,484.23 points on June 26 to the start of the trading month. Intra-month, the MSM index touched a new record high of 12,109.1 points on June 11 before giving up those early June gains in the second part of the month. The MSM’s downward movement in those two weeks was on account of banking stocks while the services sector traded sideways and the industrial sector added further gains between June 11 and 26. Individual stocks showed volatility and by late June there were both limit-up and limit-down movements in the same session. Banking heavyweight Bank Muscat shed 15.2% of its share price from June 5 to 26.
Bahrain SE (1 month)
Current Year High: 2,902.68 Current Year Low: 2,409.27
The index on the Bahrain Stock Exchange corrected downward by 61 points after recording a year high of 2,902.68 points on June 16. On the month, the index weakened by 1%. The insurance sector was the BSE’s best performing sub-index in June, showing intra-month gains of almost 4% and closing still in positive territory on June 25. Hotels and tourism was the only other sector to stay out of the red while banking slipped in the second half of the period and underperformed the general BSE index. Banking heavyweight Ahli United dropped 6.3%. In the longer-term view, the BSE is moderately up from the start of 2008 and in late June reported the lowest P/E ratio of all GCC bourses at 12.27x.
Doha SM: Qatar (1 month)
Current Year High: 12,627.32 Current Year Low: 7,340.06
The Doha Securities Market starts June with positive sessions and the index climbs to a June 11 year high of 12,627.32 points. The DSM slides back below 12,000 points and closes at 11,875.09 points on June 26, marking a net loss of 0.1% in the review period. The banking sector led the market up and down through the month, letting the insurance sub-index come out on top as June’s best performer among DSM sub-indices. Industry and services under perform the general index in June. While opposing movements of DSM and KSE in June put the two exchanges on near identical footing in year-to-date share price gains of about 24%, the DSM is still the priciest in the GCC in terms of P/E ratios. In a development which participants hope will boost Doha’s future as regional financial hub, the NYSE Euronext exchanges make a deal with Qatari authorities for buying 25% in the DSM for $250 million; the contract’s completion is expected in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Tunis SE (1 month)
Current Year High: 3,059.63 Current Year Low: 2,436.94
The Tunindex conquered a new record high on June 26, closing at 3035.50 points. The closing price represents gains of 2.5% on the month and 17.05% from the start of 2008. During the second half of June, banks traded range bound with the general index while the financial services and consumer goods sub-indices outperformed the market; the industrial index trundled behind. In the year-to-date view, the two financial sub-indices — financial services and financial companies — rocked, with gains of 57.3% and 23.3%. Shares of Assad, a battery manufacturer, continued to gain in June and ended the review period at twice the price they traded at at the end of April. Assad and global manufacturer of industrial batteries, Enersys, announced a manufacturing joint venture.
Casablanca SE All Shares (1 month)
Current Year High: 14,925.99 Current Year Low: 11,271.35
Perched on its hyper-valuation of 33.3 times price to earnings, the Casablanca Stock Exchange crept sideways and a bit downwards into the summer. The index closed at 14,188.96 on June 26, down by 328 points from the start of June. Market cap leaders Maroc Telecom and Attijariwafa Bank moved with the downward trend in June. While the Moroccan financial market’s relative isolationism as affecting local investors continues to distort the picture, the economy’s overall outlook of above 5% in 2008 and 5.5% in 2009 offers encouraging perspectives for the second half of this year.
Cairo SE: Hermes (1 month)
Current Year High: 103,313.60 Current Year Low: 67,011.50
The Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchanges in June didn’t make it out of the doldrums which the Egyptian had slipped into in May when the government announced an end to certain industrial subsidies and tax breaks. A 7,500 points fall in the EFG Hermes index in June to the close of 87,814.12 points on June 26 meant that the bourse dropped into the red on its year-to-date record and ended the review period 5.3% down when compared with the beginning of 2008. Market heavyweights Orascom Construction Holding and Orascom Telecom Holding shed 4.9% and 11.5%, respectively, between June 1 and June 26. At the end of the period, the market suffered another hit on the short-term confidence front when it was announced that the sale of Banque du Caire did not go through as planned because the government deemed the $2.025 billion valuation of BDC implied in the offer by top bidder National Bank of Greece as too low.
