The latest ISX Iraq Stock Exchange news including Banks, Capital, ISX Investment and more.
Warka’s moment of truth last Wednesday (Jan 19) turned out to be a nonevent. It seems the general assembly meeting had to be postponed for a week due to lack of a quorum. To put it another way, the chairman, who holds 60% of the stock, didn’t show up. (See my last post for more […]
The Iraqi Stock Exchange announced that it held 237 trading sessions last year, during which the 25.56 billion shares worth 400 billion dinars ($339m) changed hands. The Director of the Iraqi Securities Market, Taha Ahmed Abdul Salam, said the market index (which includes 40 companies) closed at 10,098 points in the last session of 2010. […]
On January 19, Warka Bank (BWAI) will hold a general assembly meeting to “discuss the capital increase in accordance with Article 55/1 and elect a new board of directors.” At last, it seems, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel for the bank’s minority shareholders. The “capital increase in accordance with […]
Reuters reports that Iraq is expected to attract more overseas investment this year after foreigners were net buyers on its stock exchange in 2010, snapping up $53 million worth of shares, the market’s head said on Sunday. Taha A. Abdulsalam, chief executive of the Iraq Stock Exchange (ISX), said foreign investors were showing interest across […]
The Iraq Stock Exchange ended the year with a bang last month, with Rabee Securities’ RSISX index rising 8.8% in the final two weeks of trading. Having been down as much as 10% year-to-date in early October, this index actually managed to close 2010 up 1.7%. Volume in the final week rose above IQD 10 […]
The formation of a new Iraqi government will undoubtedly be good for stock market sentiment, as such events generally are. And indeed the market has pretty obviously turned around already, with volumes increasing and the Rabee Securities index up about 6% since bottoming in early October. But skeptics may still argue that investors have no […]
While in other markets stocks go ex-rights overnight, in Iraq things take a bit longer. Generally, trading is suspended prior to shareholders meetings at which rights and bonus issues will be voted on and does not resume for months afterwards. In the case of rights issues, the suspension will last until all the shares on […]
Global Capital Investments, of Illinois, has created a private investment fund for sophisticated investors who wish to invest in the long-term growth potential of the emerging Iraqi economy. The objective of the fund is to seek long-term capital appreciation over a broad range of Iraqi listed securities, a small number of private investments and Iraqi […]
They say the only two things anyone ever really knows about a stock are the price and the ticker symbol. In Iraq, this is true to such an extent that it’s difficult even to adjust old record high prices for corporate actions like rights and bonus share issues. A stock could be making new highs […]
In my October 11 post, I argued that the ISX stands a reasonable chance of joining this year’s emerging markets rally. Today, I’d like to make an even more audacious claim: in 2011, inflows of foreign money could potentially make Iraq the world’s top performing market. You can get some idea of the upside potential […]
MerchantBridge, the international private equity group with diverse investment interests operating from Iraq, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, has launched an Iraq equity fund, the "Mesopotamia Equity Fund Ltd". The Mesopotamia Fund is an open ended fund that will capitalize on the expected long term growth of the Iraqi Stock Exchange (ISX). […]
On October 6, the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) announced new deadlines for the private sector banks to reach the capital targets it set for them last March. According to the CBI’s original timetable, the banks had until the end of this year to bring their capital up to ID 100 bn (US$ 85 mn), […]
