The Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) ended the week with a 1.30% rise to stand at 1,216.29 points; moreover, the market capitalization rose from $10.10B last week to $10.23B this week.
The average traded volume and value on the Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) grew from 132,287 and $1.21M on January 20th, 2017 to 461,677 and $4.39M at the end of this week, respectively.
Over the same period, the BSI lagged behind its regional peers where the S&P Pan Arab Composite LargeMidCap, the S&P AFE40, and the the MSCI Emerging recorded respective growths of 2.52%, 2.15%, and 2.48%.
Regionally, Gulf stock markets mainly witnessed an uprise on the back of strong global equities and oil prices, while Egypt surged due to the success of Cairo’s $4B international sovereign bond issue. As such, the Kuwaiti and Saudi bourses registered the largest gains during the week with respective rises of 4.95% and 3.77%, and Egypt followed with a weekly increase of 2.22%. Nonetheless, the Arab markets that dropped over the past week were the bourses of Abu Dhabi and Tunis with respective losses of 1.71% and 0.37%.
The banking sector accounted for 15.09% of the traded value during the period, where BLOM Bank’s GDRs and Audi GDRs grew by 2.31% and 0.59% over the past week to reach $11.50 and $6.82, respectively. Bank Audi’s listed shares also rose by 3.06% to settle at $6.74.
As for the BLOM Preferred Shares Index (BPSI), it witnessed a weekly rise of 0.19% to 105.60 points. This rise came due to the increase in Byblos Preferred 2008 and 2009 shares, which respectively increased by weekly 0.1% and 0.97% to reach $102.20 and $103.60. Furthermore, both BLC preferred class B and D shares inclined by a similar 1% to stand at $101.00.
As for the real estate sector, grasping the largest share of total traded value, 84.34%, Solidere A and B shares escalated by 5.13% and 1.13% to settle at the prices of $10.25 and $9.84, respectively.
In the manufacturing sector, HOLCIM and Ciments-Blancs’ bearer shares shares respectively fell by 4.60% and 25.54% to reach $11.40 and $2.42.
On the London Stock Exchange (LSE), BLOM and Audi’s GDR shares rose 2.22% and 1.47% to close at $11.50 and $6.90, respectively. Moreover, Solidere GDR shares increased by 2.56% to stand at $10.
Despite negative security developments during the past week, investors are still optimistic and awaiting for the banks to release their financial statements, especially after Byblos Bank revealed a 2.37% rise in its net profits for the year of 2016.