Middle East ETF News Older than One Year
Saudi Capital Market Authority grants licenses for three Shuaa funds
November 16, 2009--Shuaa Capital Saudi Arabia (SCSA), announced that Saudi Arabia's Capital Market Authority (CMA) has licensed three SHUAA funds in the Saudi market; the SCSA Morabaha Fund; SCSA Saudi Gateway Fund; and SCSA Saudi Islamic Gateway Fund.
The three funds will take a conservative approach to investment and will focus on listed Shariah compliant and conventional Saudi stocks as well as IPOs. Following CMA's approval, SCSA will announce the timeline to open subscriptions in the three funds for investors.
Source: AME Info
OPEC daily basket price stood at $76.06 a barrel Thursday, 12/11/09
November 13, 2009--The price of OPEC basket of twelve crudes stood at 76.06 dollars a barrel on Thursday, compared with $76.89 the previous day, according to OPEC Secretariat calculations.
The new OPEC Reference Basket of Crudes (ORB) is made up of the following: Saharan Blend (Algeria),
Girassol (Angola), Oriente (Ecuador), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Qatar Marine (Qatar), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and Merey (Venezuela).
Source: OPEC
ADX holds level
November 12, 2009--The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange ended trading where it began, going up by a marginal 0.02% to 2,967.66.
On low trading volumes 18 stocks went up, 12 fell and five held steady. The National Corp for Tourism and Hotels was the day's biggest riser going up by 9.91% to Dhs6.32.
Source: AME INFO
DFM ends week on a low
November 12, 2009-The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) fell 1.75% to 2,166.90. Two companies rose, 24 fell and four remained unchanged.
The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) fell 1.75% to 2,166.90. Two companies rose, 24 fell and four remained unchanged.
Source: Arab Daily
'No pressure' on Gulf dollar pegs
November 12, 2009--Merrill Lynch has said that Gulf countries are unlikely to come under pressure to abandon their currency pegs, as US interest rates remain low, Bloomberg has reported. The region's central banks have to limit monetary policy actions to stay in line with the US Federal Reserve, Merrill Lynch analyst, Turker Hamzaoglu said.
Merrill doesn't expect the Fed to raise rates until 2011, he said, adding that the region will not to go back to strong growth before the next two to three years.
Source: AME Info
ETF investment from GCC rises 50 percent
November 11, 2009--There is a 50 per cent rise in the number of individuals and firms from the GCC that are investing in exchange traded funds (ETFs), Deborah Fuhr, the global head of ETF research with Barclays Global Investors, told Emirates Business.
The comment came as the global investment into ETF rose to an all time high of $1 trillion (Dh3.67trn).
"More people from the region are getting attracted to ETFs. They are using ETFs for an exposure to Bric countries namely Brazil, Russia, India and China. They are looking at exposures to government products and towards an exposure to precious metals. They are looking in terms of consistency of results of investments. And ETFs are providing them all these features," Fuhr said. She added that there are significant private banks in the region that are adding ETFs to their list of investments.
Since ETFs are not offered in the region, GCC nationals venture elsewhere in search for the products. Robert Broadwell, the head of sales for iShares Middle East (a Barclays Global Investors entity), identified different trading cycles and a difficulty in finding online low-cost brokers as some of the lacunas adversely impacting flow of wealth from this region into ETFs.
Source: Zaywa
Banker survey shows the growth in Islamic finance
November 10, 2009--Has Islamic finance reached a significant size and maturity to genuinely compete with conventional banking services? Can Islamic banking be more than a niche industry?
The Banker's third annual survey of the world's Top 500 Islamic Financial Institutions this month suggests that not only has the industry avoided the calamities of conventional banks that led to the current global banking crisis, it has also managed to maintain strong asset growth in turbulent economic conditions.
Healthy growth
The 2009 survey shows that the volume of sharia-compliant assets of the Top 500 grew by an extremely healthy 28.6%, rising to $822bn from $639bn in 2008. At a time when asset growth in the Top 1000 World Banks slumped to 6.8% from 21.6% the previous year, Islamic institutions were able to maintain the 28% annual compound growth achieved in the past three years.read more
Source; The Banker
Egyptian broker to buy investment bank
November 10, 2009--Pioneers Holding, a leading Egyptian brokerage, on Sunday said it would buy Beltone Financial, the Cairo-based regional investment bank, in an all-share deal that will create one of the largest financial institutions in the Middle East.
Pioneers, which has an extensive network in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, said it would issue 100m new shares to represent the as yet unannounced value of Beltone. The current shareholders of the investment bank will own a 17 per cent stake in the merged company.read more
Source: FT.com
Moody's: Sukuk issuance surges, dominated by government-related issuers
November 10, 2009--Global sukuk issuance grew more than 40% in the first ten months of this year with sovereigns and government-related entities dominating the scene, even as new corporate sukuks declined, according to global credit rating agency Moody’s.
Moody’s expects Islamic bonds issue to register a 50% full-year growth in 2009, offsetting the 55% decline seen in 2008. Rising sovereign sukuk issue will pave way for a strong secondary market, especially for corporate debt, the agency said.
“Amid current economic and capital market conditions, sukuk issuance is starting to become dominated by sovereigns and government-related entities, a development that will foster a more efficient and soundly based sukuk market,” Moody’s said in a special report.
Source: Gulf Times
Saudi gold consumption tops SR16.5bn
November 10, 2009--Gold consumption in Saudi Arabia grew last year by 17% in terms of value, breaking the SR16.5bn barrier, compared with SR13.8bn in 2007. Conversely, the total demand in terms of weight fell by 4% to 122.4 tonnes
In the fourth quarter of 2008 the kingdom fell to seventh in the world in terms of demand for jewellery and gold jewellery.
Source: Arab News
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