 |
|
nothing fancy here: Brokers write the latest stock prices on a wall of whiteboards, the Baghdad bourse's answer to computers. pic/afp |
Stock markets across the globe may be tanking, but the Baghdad bourse is booming, with the general index of Iraq's stock exchange up by nearly 40 per cent last month.
Hotels and banks are the hottest picks among the exchange's 95 listed companies.
"People know the hotel stocks are undervalued ... They think that in the new year, companies will come to Iraq and the hotel business will flourish," said investor Saad Jalil.
"People think there will be a jump in stocks because they're undervalued. The world banking crisis won't affect us, our market is sealed off from the outside. We don't even have electronic trading."
Years of war
Share prices on Iraq's stock exchange plummeted during the years of sectarian warfare after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Investors say visiting the bourse was almost impossible when militia and death squads ruled the streets.
But violence has fallen to four-year lows. Baghdad's stock index jumped a year ago when the fall in violence was most pronounced and has zoomed again in recent weeks as investors eye a reconstruction bonanza fuelled by huge oil revenues.
