Economy & Aid
The Al-Quds index closes at its highest level in a year
Image credit: Palestine Trade Tower, Ramallah — Mohammad Hijjawi / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 · License
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The Palestine Exchange closed its week on Thursday with the Al-Quds index at 683.33 points, its highest close in twelve months.
The index gained 6.25 points on the session, or 0.92 per cent, from a previous close of 677.08 on Wednesday. It traded between 676.78 and 684.74, and that high is now the top of its 52-week range, which runs from 523.61.
The figures were read on Friday from the Al-Quds (PLE) quote page on the market data service Investing.com. The exchange's own site, pex.ps, does not answer automated requests, so its published session report could not be used to confirm them independently.
A month that ran in one direction#
The Nablus market has moved up almost without interruption since the start of August, when the index stood at 646.15. Thursday's close is 5.7 per cent above that, and the gain has come in small, steady steps rather than in a single jump.
The exchange trades Sunday to Thursday, so Thursday's figure is the settled close of the week and the last completed session before this weekend.
683.33 points on 27 August — a twelve-month high on the Palestine Exchange.
Al-Quds index close, as reported on the exchange's quote data
What the number measures, and what it does not#
The Al-Quds index tracks 47 listed companies and is denominated in Jordanian dinars. Its weight sits with the banks, the telecoms group and a handful of holding companies, which is why the index can climb while the economy around it does not.
This paper reported on 24 August that whole sessions on the exchange have been worth less than a million dollars, and that a single stock can account for three-quarters of a day's turnover through off-market transfers. A record in a market that thin is a real number about a small pool of assets, not a verdict on Palestinian incomes.
That distinction is worth holding on to as the figure rises. What the index says is that investors who can buy Palestinian listed equity have kept buying it through a month of settler violence in the northern West Bank, a stalled crossing decision in Gaza and an Israeli election campaign — and that they have found no better place to put dinars.
Times of Palestine reports market levels as facts and dates them. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security.
