The real estate sector managed to recover this week following 3 weeks of weak performance. This was mainly on the back of positive political discussions and the parliamentary session that took was held on Thursday and Friday. Many laws and agreements were approved especially the anti-monetary laundering law, the soft loans from international organizations and the law of people with Lebanese ancestors could get back their Lebanese heritage. Accordingly, the BLOM Stock Index (BSI) added 3.18% to end the week at 1,143.74 points. However, the average traded volume and value went down from to 833,303 shares worth $8.13M last week to 107,180 shares worth $936,561. It is worth mentioning that a key factor behind this decrease was the cross-trade of 3,580,080 BLOM listed shares worth $33,831,756 last week. As for the market capitalization, it broadened from $9.21B to $9.50B.
In hindsight, the BSI outperformed the Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets Index (MSCI), S&P AFE 40 Index and the S&P Pan Arab Composite Large-Mid-Cap Index which recorded weekly losses of 3.52%, 1.27% and 0.36%, respectively.
Most Arab Bourses saw weekly downturns, the largest being in Egypt, decreasing by 9.75% during the week. This lackluster performance was caused by fears of currency devaluation and higher interest rates coupled with security tensions. Dubai Bourse quickly followed declining by 5.38% weekly amid selloff among real estate stocks. In addition, Qatar’s stock exchange also fell by 5.32% over the week, while Saudi Arabia’s Bourse was the only stock market that saw weekly gains (other than the BSE), which augmented by 1.76%.
Back to the Beirut Stock Exchange, the real estate sector captured 58.22% of the total traded value during the week while the banking and the industrial sectors grasped the remaining 38.61% and 3.17%, respectively.
In the real estate sector, Solidere shares classes “A” and “B” surged by 23.54% and 19.62%, during the week, to $10.00 and $10.13, respectively.
In the banking sector, listed and GDR shares of Audi gained 0.17% and 0.84% to end the week at $5.95 and $6.00, respectively. In contrast, BLOM listed shares lost 0.53% to close at $9.40. As for the performance of preferred shares, the BLOM Preferred Shares Index (BPSI) progressed by 0.23% to 106.06 points. The majority of traded preferred shares were on the rise with Audi preferred shares class “H” increasing by 0.9% to $101.50, Byblos preferred shares 2009 progressing by 1.59% to $102.50, Bank of Beirut preferred shares class “E” jumping by 2.13% to $26.35, and BLC preferred shares class “B” increasing by 0.50% to $100.50. On the other hand, Byblos preferred shares 2008 and BLC preferred shares class “B” declined by a weekly 0.20% and 0.50% to settle at respective levels of $100.30 and $100.00.
In the industrial sector, Holcim shares dropped by a weekly 4.29% to close the week at $14.50.
For the coming weeks, the developments on the political front will keep affecting the performance of the Lebanese bourse.