Iraq Business News brings you the latest news of investments in Iraq, highlighting the many opportunities that exist.
By John Lee. The Erbil Stock Exchange (ESX) is reportedly due to start operations in the fourth quarter of this year. Ahmed Abdul Rahim Abdullah, Director General of the stock market in Kurdistan, confirmed the schedule to Shafaq News. It is understood that some of the work is being carried out by Nasdaq. (Source: Shafaaq)
By Mark DeWeaver. Since the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) began changing the rules for its USD auctions in 2012, Iraq has been operating a de facto dual exchange rate system. (There’s a summary of some of the CBI’s recent rule changes on pages 12-14 of this report from Sansar Capital.) For those with access […]
By Mark DeWeaver. In this old post from 2010, I considered the possibility that ISX share prices might fail to adjust completely for corporate actions. There didn’t seem to be much evidence for this but it was a bit hard to be sure. In those days, stocks would generally be suspended for a number of […]
By John Lee. Iraq's housing minister Mohammed al-Darraji says that the country is planning to spend $5bn on new housing units in the next 3 years, but that the required 2.5 million new units will not be complete on time to meet demand, Rebuilding Iraq reports. Currently there will only be 130,000 new units by next year, […]
By Mark DeWeaver. ISX observers sometimes blame share price declines on people selling their recently listed bonus or rights issue shares. Such behavior would be interesting to document because it seems to imply a departure from perfect rationality. From the point of view of conventional finance theory, there just isn’t any reason to differentiate between […]
By John Lee. T Rowe Price has reportedly been selling some of its Iraqi government debt, in anticipation of renewed political turmoil in the country. Investment Week reports that the fund manager has been overweight in Iraq for several years, and at one time was the largest Iraqi debt holder. The company's emerging market debt […]
By Mark DeWeaver. 2013 was another strong year for deposit growth at the ISX-listed banks. Deposits at the 19 names that have so far reported year-end financials were up 17% year-on-year as of December 31. (Only BDFD and BELF, which together accounted for 8% of 2012 listed-bank deposits, have yet to report.) While their deposit […]
Advertising Feature Rabee Securities Iraq Stock Exchange (ISX) market report (week ending: 6th March 2014). Please click here to download a table of listed companies and their associated ticker codes. The RSISX index ended the week at ID1,844 (+1.4%)/ $1,959 (+1.4%) (weekly change). The number of week traded shares was 68.3bn and the weekly trading […]
By Mark DeWeaver. In my last post I argued that Iraqi banks’ high cash/deposit ratios are due to the absence of an interbank market. If that is the case, you might think it would be easy to get the banks to put more of their deposits to work in the "real economy." Couldn’t somebody (e.g. […]
Advertising Feature Rabee Securities Iraq Stock Exchange (ISX) market report (week ending: 27th February 2014). Please click here to download a table of listed companies and their associated ticker codes. The RSISX index ended the week at ID1,819 (-3.6%)/ $1,932 (-3.6%) (weekly change). The number of week traded shares was 21.2bn and the weekly trading […]
By Mark DeWeaver. Fund managers visiting Iraq for the first time are often surprised by the large amounts of cash Iraqi banks typically hold. While the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) requires lenders to hold 15% of their deposits in the form of vault cash and central bank reserves, most hold well over 50%. (See […]
Advertising Feature Rabee Securities Iraq Stock Exchange (ISX) market report (week ending: 20th February 2014). Please click here to download a table of listed companies and their associated ticker codes. The RSISX index ended the week at ID1,888 (-2.5%)/ $2,005 (-2.5%) (weekly change). The number of week traded shares was 11.2bn and the weekly trading […]
