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.