Lebanese Stock Exchange showed a lackluster performance, as continued uncertainty on the local political scene held back the real estate sector. The BLOM Stock Index (BSI) declined by 0.43% to 1,137.73 points. However, the average traded volume and value went up to 206,860 shares worth $1.49M from last week’s 107,708 shares worth $1.34M. As for the market capitalization, it narrowed from $9.49B to $9.45B.
However, the BSI managed to outperform the Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets Index (MSCI), the S&P AFE 40 Index and the S&P Pan Arab Composite Large-Mid-Cap Index, which recorded respective weekly losses of 2.31%, 2.41%, and 0.76%, respectively, over the week.
Most Arab Bourses saw weekly downturns, the largest being in Saudi, Dubai, and Qatar, decreasing by 4.11%, 2.95%, and 1.34%, respectively. These declines might be mainly attributed to the 4.58% fall in international oil prices over the week. On the other hand, the only three bourses that saw improvement were Amman, Kuwait and Egypt, gaining a weekly 1.22%, 0.86% and 0.22% respectively.
Back to the Beirut Stock Exchange, the banking sector captured 76.32% of the total traded value during the week while the real estate and industrial sectors grasped the remaining 23.54% and 0.14%, respectively.
In the banking sector, the listed and GDR shares of Audi lost respective amounts of 0.67% and 0.83% from last week’s quotes, to end up at the same price of $5.95. Worth mentioning that Bank Audi released its unaudited consolidated financial statements for the first 9 months of, 2015 and realized profit of $304.18M, an increase of 8.68%.
On a weekly basis, the BLOM Preferred Shares Index (BPSI) progressed by 0.28% to 105.53 points. This was caused by Audi preferred shares class “F”, Bank of Beirut preferred shares class “I” and “H” augmenting by 0.40%, 0.35% and 0.35% to $101.10, $26.35 and $26.35, respectively.
During the coming weeks, the Lebanese Bourse will be affected as usual by the political developments but also by the releases of the banks’ financial statements up to September 2015.