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Weak liquidity and an increase in the anticipation pace for the annual disclosures

2024-02-07

 Sahem weekly trading report (04-07)-02-2024

In this week – with four trading sessions-, and with the approaching end of the legal period granted to the listed companies to disclose their preliminary annual financial data in the coming week, the investors’ anticipation accelerated during the week to prevail an inactivity state again in the market, which in turn witnessed weakness in the price depth, and lack of normal liquidity, if executing transactions were excluded. Regarding the price trend, Al-Quds Index increased by 0.43% than the previous week, to record 559.90 points after trading in a relatively narrow range. In this week, an off-floor transaction was executed on the stocks of the largest investment company in Palestine Stock Exchange PEX in terms of market capitalization – Palestine Development and Investment Company PADICO- in addition to small-volume transactions on the stocks of Palestine Telecommunications PALTEL and the Arab Islamic Bank AIB. While the total trading value in still weak.

Regarding the economic indicators and according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics PCBS, the overall Industrial Production Index IPI in Palestine with its Base Year (2019) reached 99.81 in 2023, which indicates a sharp decrease by 8.01% compared to 108.50 in 2022. IPI for 2023 sharply deceased due to the sharp decrease in the activities of water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation by 16.29%, and the activities of manufacturing industry by 8.91%. While, the activities of mining and quarrying increased by 3.74%, and the activities of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply by 0.48%. In another context, the overall IPI in Palestine reached 76.27 during December 2023 with an increase of 2.42% compared to 74.47 in November 2023 (Base Year 2019).

Regarding the economic indicators and according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics PCBS as well, the Construction Cost Index (CCI) for Residential buildings in the West Bank reached 120.49 during 2023 with an increase of 1.28% compared with 2022 (Base year 2013). At the level of major groups, the prices of the labor costs and wages increased sharply by 4.55%, and the prices of rental of equipment increased sharply by 2.22%. While, the price of raw material decreased by 0.40% during 2023 compared with the previous year. On the other hand, the Construction Cost Index (CCI) for residential buildings in the West Bank reached 120.93 with a decrease of 0.38% during December 2023 compared with 121.39in November 2023 (base year 2013).