2005 3rd Quarter Report

 The third quarter of 2005 was a continuation to the compelling performance that we have witnessed over the last few quarters. The following are the highlights of the main indicators during the third quarter of 2005:

The market-cap weighted  Alquds index  exceeded the resistance level of 900 during the month of September 2005. By the end of the third quarter, 2005, the index reached 885.42 compared to 669.69 at the end of the second quarter and 277.56 at the end of 2004. The percentage increase in the index was 219% compared to the end of 2004 and 32.2% compared to the end of the second quarter.

During the third quarter of 2005; trading values were 472.7 million dollar, compared to 357.5 million dollar during the second quarter that is an increase of 32.2 %. It is worth mentioning that trading values since the beginning of 2005 and until the end of the third quarter exceeded by 57% all trading values for the years since the first trading session held at the PSE in early 1997 and until December 31, 2004, which were 811.6 million dollar.

The volume of shares traded during the third quarter was 87.4 million shares compared with 63.2 million shares during the second quarter. That is an increase by 38.2 %.

Market capitalization reached 3,401,632,945 by the end of the third quarter compared to 2,562,032,695 at the end of the first quarter and 1,096,525,380 at the end of 2004. It is worth mentioning that the ratio of Market capitalization for listed companies to the Palestinian GDP is slightly above 86% (using the World bank projection for the Palestinian GDP for 2005).

Shares for all listed and traded companies (24 companies) were traded during the third quarter. The PSE is to lift the suspension placed on shares for the Arab Company for Paints Product.

The PSE and the Palestine Limited Bank are finalizing the logistics to list the Bank at the PSE. It is worth mentioning that the Securities Law number 12 for 2004 states that its mandatory for all public shareholding companies to be listed at the stock exchange.

A positive improvement is that almost all listed companies disclosed their financial statement for the year ended December 31, 2004. In addition, we have seen that most listed companies which posses more than 90% of trading volumes did disclose their semiannual reports.