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The PEX opens the year 2016 in slowness

2016-01-06

Weekly Trading Report [03-06/01/ [2016

In the first week of trading in 2016, the general trend in the PEX opposed what had the last year ended with. Whereby, the price movements slowed and the liquidity declined to low levels in the 4 trading sessions of the week amid calmness among the investors with their different categories. Despite the varied optimism levels among the securities’ sector parties that stem from important and substantial factors from the Palestinian investment environment and the listed companies, but the anticipation- with its different types and motives- dominates a large space in the PEX investor’s behaviors following the unique entity of the PEX that imposes itself as purely political format.  Where the negative reflection doesn’t reflect itself harshly in the PEX as we got used to, as optimism and hope for a turnaround in trading and liquidity patterns stay trapped in a qualitative shift in the politics in Palestine which in turn maybe sooner or later.

During the week, the substantial news that impacts the companies’ stocks receded and the investors’ buying/selling strategies were also scarce. During these days, no announcements accelerated except for holding the general assembly meetings in order to review the preliminary annual financial data for 2015. According to the applied law, the PEX grants the listed companies 45 days since the end of the last year to disclose their preliminary data. In this context, the anticipation increases more for investors in waiting for the final figures that will be disclosed by the companies and especially the blue-chips in order to predict the investment yield in the form of cash or stocks dividends, which depends mainly on the company’s remaining strategies during the year to maintain specific operation revenues levels versus completely hedging any surrounding changes.

In terms of trading, the stock of Palestine Commercial Bank PCB topped the PEX by accounting for 57.43% after executing an institutional cross transaction at the end of the week. The stock increased by 6.52% and close at the level of $0.98. The stock of Bank of Palestine BOP came second after topping the transactions among the last weeks, whereby, its transactions constituted 14.98% from the PEX’s total trading value, to decrease by 1.67% and close at the level of $2.95. The stock of Al-Quds Bank QUDS followed by accounting for 13.44%, to close at the level of $1.35; up by 3.85%.