Another Downturn for the Beirut Stock Exchange This Week

Lebanese equities fell for the fourth straight week on banks’ dividend distributions and ahead of the municipal elections. Hence, the BLOM Stock Index ticked down by a weekly 0.23% to end the week at 1,151.76 points, narrowing its year-to-date gain to 1.52%. Trading activity also contracted over the week’s four sessions and was reflected by a fading average traded volume that went down from 349,126 shares worth $4.69M last week to 182,575 shares worth $1.21M. As for the market capitalization, it decreased by $22.02M to settle at $9.51B.

Relatively to its regional peers, the BLOM Stock Index outperformed each of the S&P Pan Arab Composite Large-Mid-Cap Index and the S&P AFE 40 Index which recorded respective weekly losses of 2.20% and 2.76%. However, the steeper downturn was illustrated in the performance of the Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets Index (MSCI) that dropped 4% over the week.

In the regional market, Tunisia’s index was seen as the best player of the week, adding 2.0% and followed by each of Muscat and Amman indices that rose by 0.62% and 0.42%. However, the first weekly downturn of global Brent prices in nearly 5 weeks was mainly behind the losses occurred in most of the GCC bourses. In details, Dubai and Qatar were among the worst performers, with the former shedding 5.28% from last week and the latter losing a weekly 4.29%. 

On the Beirut Stock Exchange, the banking sector took 86.57% of total traded value, while the real estate and industrial sectors contributed for the remaining 12.97% and 0.46%, respectively.

By the end of this week, financial stocks saw mixed performance. BLOM listed and GDR shares rose by 2.36% and 0.50% to settle at $10.39 and $10.05, respectively. On a different note, Bank Audi listed shares posted a 0.17% weekly progress to $5.86, while its GDR shares decreased by 0.34% to $5.80. Byblos listed shares lost a weekly 0.61% to reach $1.64.

As for the BLOM Preferred Shares Index (BPSI), it decreased by 0.10% over the week, to settle at 105.16 points. This came on the back of the 0.30% weekly drop in the price of BLOM preferred shares class 2011 to $10 and despite the 0.10% weekly increase in the price of Byblos preferred shares class 2009 to $100.20.

 In the real estate sector, Solidere shares went below the $10.00 mark with the class “A” and “B” respectively losing 3.34% and 1.10% to $9.85 and $9.89.

Within the industrial sector, HOLCIM shares rose by 0.35% from last week’s price of $14.25 to settle at $14.30.

On the London Stock Exchange, BLOM GDRs added 0.98% to end the week at $10.30. In contrast, Audi and Solidere GDRs went down from $5.83 and $10.00 last week to $5.75 and $9.86, respectively.

The Beirut Stock Exchange maintained the downward trend this week despite the positive first quarter’s results of the listed Lebanese banks as they coincided with 2015’s dividend distributions. In addition, a further drop on the Lebanese bourse may be materialized in the upcoming period especially as investors are awaiting Solidere’s financial results for 2015 which are mostly foreseen below prior expectations.

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