ISX ends week with 0.5% rise

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Iraqi Stock Exchange (ISX) ended this week at an increase of 0.5% to close at 94.9 points as rates of shares of 10 out of 36 companies that traded in today’s session went up. Thursday’s session saw more than 922.559 million shares worth 2.425 billion Iraqi dinars exchanging hands through 222 deals with non-Iraqi investors grabbing eight purchase deals worth 3.8 million over insurance, investment, service and hotel sectors and one sale deal worth 206,000 dinars over the industrial sector. The banking sector took the lead with 87% of the overall trading activities through 106 deals worth 1.274 billion over 11 banking firms, followed by the service sector with 4% of the trading through 41 deals over four firms and the hotel sector with 4% through 41 deals over eight firms. The ISX witnessed its first E-trading session on April 19, 2009 over five registered companies, three banks and two hotels. The banks were: Ashur International Bank (AIB), Al-Mansour Bank and the Iraqi Credit Bank while the hotels were: Ashtar Hotel and Al-Mansour Hotel. On June 7, the Iraqi Middle East Investment Bank and the Warka Bank joined the electronic trading sessions. The ISX now holds five sessions from Sunday to Thursday. AmR (S) 1