Arab stock index

Solidere and BLOM listed on new Arab stock exchange index ‘S&P AFE 40’

The Arab Federation of Exchanges (AFE) and Standard & Poor’s Indices announced the initiation of a new index for measuring the performance of 40 leading companies in the Middle East and North Africa region. The inception date of the ‘S&P AFE 40’ was October 24.

The ‘S&P AFE 40’ is comprised of the 40 largest stocks listed on AFE member exchanges. Lebanon accounts for 2.5 percent of the index weight with two companies listed, Solidere and BLOM.

The index includes companies from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the UAE.

To be listed on the index, each stock must have at least $50 million in value traded over 12 months. At least one stock from each country must be included, and each country can have a maximum of ten stocks.

The S&P AFE 40 uses a capped market capitalization weighted index scheme. The maximum weight of a listed stock cannot exceed ten percent. The total maximum weight for each country cannot exceed 35 percent.

Saudi Arabia has the largest share of 35.1 percent of the index weight, with ten companies listed. Kuwait follows with 23.2 percent of the index weight and seven companies listed. Qatar has the third largest share of 12.2 percent of the weight with four companies listed.