The Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) failed to maintain its upward trend this week and succumbed to the bearish movements that painted the international and regional stock markets. Actually, the BLOM Stock Index (BSI) ended the week’s 4 trading sessions on a negative note after slipping by 0.36% to 1,224.87 points. As for the average traded volume, it widened from 72,256 shares worth $604,479 to 1.85M shares amounting to $12.82M. Despite the heavy trading that characterized the BSE this week following cross trades on Byblos listed shares and Audi GDRs, the BSI narrowed by 4.67% since year start with the market capitalization tightening by $37.65M to $10.31B.
On a comparative scale, the BSI outperformed the S&P Pan Arab Composite Large-Mid-Cap Index that lost 2.13% from last week’s level and the S&P AFE 40 Index that fell by a weekly 1.68%. However, the Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets Index (MSCI) outpaced the Lebanese gauge as it slipped by a slighter 0.26%.
On the regional front, Abu Dhabi and Tunisia were the only Arab stock markets to post positive performance with respective weekly upticks of 0.82% and.0.01%. In contrast, Egypt was the week’s biggest loser posting a 4.89% weekly decline mainly due to the country joining 5 GCC and other countries in their military intervention against Houthi rebels in Yemen. In the same context, Gulf markets neighboring Yemen also revealed negative performance this week mainly Kuwait (-3.31%), Saudi Arabia (-2.95%), Dubai (-1.91%) and Muscat (-1.72%).
Back to Lebanon, and given the 2 cross trades that took place during the week, the banking sector grasped 90.04% of total traded value, while the real estate sector slightly contributed to the remaining 9.96%.
In the banking sector, BLOM listed shares and Audi GDRs improved this week by 5.78% and 2.96% to $9.70 and $6.95, respectively. Worth mentioning, the improvement of BLOM Bank common shares resulted from the board of directors’ proposition to distribute dividends. In addition, 6.2M Audi GDR shares were cross traded on Monday this week at a price of $7.00, while 468,528 Byblos common shares were cross traded on Tuesday at $1.71. In fact, the common shares of Byblos and those of Audi witnessed weekly drops of 1.72% and 1.31% to $1.71 and $6.76, respectively.
As for the BLOM Preferred Shares Index (BPSI), it inched up by 0.02% to 106.32 points. The index was boosted by the weekly 0.10% increase of Byblos preferred shares class 08 to $102.50.
Regarding the real estate sector, Solidere shares class “A” and “B” shed 3.73% and 6.40% during the week to $11.35 and $11.12, respectively.
Finally, the Beirut Stock Exchange may show further retreat in the coming period if regional turbulences kept on emerging. However, a breakthrough in political dialogue regarding the presidential stalemate could revive trading activity on the Lebanese stock market.