ISX gains 29 fresh points this week

BAGHDAD /IraqiNews.com: The Iraqi Stock Exchange (ISX) has gained 29 new points, upping its index to 13% this week, while the banking sector played a second fiddle to industrial firms due to a trading hiatus as banks convened their board meetings. Last week, the ISX has retrieved 20 points of its index and gained 14 more to close at 252 points, less than this week’s closing at 281. The 2nd e-trading session on Sunday (April 26) has seen the shares of three joint-stock companies out of a total five firms registered at the ISX changing hands. The three firms are Ashur International Bank (AIB), al-Mansour Bank and the Commercial Bank of Iraq (CBIQ). No contracts were concluded over al-Mansour Hotel and Ashtar Hotel firms. The session saw the trading of more than 135 million shares valued at more than 174 million Iraqi dinars ($148,000) in 40 transactions. The ISX had witnessed the first e-trading session on Sunday (April 19) over five registered companies, three banks and two hotels, while the two normal sessions saw more than 1.3 million shares changing hands at a value of 3.2 billion Iraqi dinars ($2.7 million) in 639 transactions. The industrial sector took the lead this week, grabbing the biggest chunk of traded shares by 59% and 45% in trading value out of the total manual trading, followed by the hotel sector with 39% and 20% and coming third was the banking sector with 23% of shares and 32% in trading value. Foreign investors concluded 44 transactions at a total value of 53 million Iraqi dinars by purchasing more than 30 million shares this week. The ISX holds three sessions on a weekly basis: one electronic session over five joint-stock companies on Sundays and two manual trading sessions over 86 registered companies out of a total 91 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. AmR (S) 1