Ahmad squints across the room at the Arabic markings in felt pen on the white aluminum board. Unlike most other investors on the Baghdad Stock Exchange, he doesn't have binoculars. Finally, he sees, and smiles. His shares in Gaseous Water Co are up in today's trading. Gaseous Water is one of 116 stocks listed on the exchange and the best performer on the 10-year-old stock market, where it's more than doubled this year. It trades at 55 dinars, or less than a US penny. Another winner: a hotel chain called the Babel.
UN weapons inspectors crisscross the country to look for weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq is preparing for a possible attack from the US. The 51 brokers and hundreds of investors crowding the gray stone floor of the stock exchange just keep on trading, feeding on any news or rumor to make picks. As in New York, London and Tokyo, it's been a bad year.
"Everything in the country depends on the political situation, and so does the stock market," says Ahmad, a 70-year-old retired government employee with a thick of white hair. He declined to give his full name.
"If we avoid a war, the market will pick up, for sure."
The stock exchange was established in 1992, one year after the Gulf War ended and economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq, to help jump-start a floundering economy. Ten years on, perhaps a thousand Iraqis trade on the floor or over the phone. Nor is the market very liquid. Its market capitalization is US$18 million, about three-fourths of President George W. Bush's net worth.
The exchange stands as an oddity in Iraq where the government runs the oil industry, the country's main source of wealth, and controls all sectors of the economy through state companies.
Still, President Saddam Hussein's government was willing to allow trading to begin freely in 66 smaller companies when the exchange was set up 10 years ago. That's also when the government allowed Iraqis and foreigners to open accounts in dollars and private banks were given licenses to operate in the country. All 16 private banks are now listed on the stock market.
The Baghdad exchange, located near Saadoun Street, one of the main thoroughfares in the center of the capital city, is in a two-story concrete building and stands next to a vegetable market. About 200 stockholders inside line up behind the barrier running across the floor of the central room.
They whisper their orders to brokers on the other side of the barrier, who write them up on the white board that lines one wall.
Some investors need binoculars to see the latest quotes before sending their buy and sell orders. There is nary a computer in sight.
Companies ranging from banks, manufacturers, or industrial and agricultural concerns are listed; investors can trade in three weekly sessions from 9:30am to noon. All trading is done manually and stock prices aren't allowed to rise or fall by more than five percent in each session to "protect our investors," says Sobhi al-Azzami, the general director of the stock exchange.
"We can't allow the market to fall into the hands of speculators," says Azzami, as he absent-mindedly plays with a papercutter. Two phones, a radio and a small television set sit on his bare and dusty desk. Above his head is a framed picture of Hussein, accused by the US and UK governments of hoarding weapons of mass destruction.
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