The Iraq Stock Exchange
Because it has no computers, if you buy a stock on the Iraq Stock Exchange in Baghdad, you have to wait 15-20 days to get the stock certificate. But that's now going to change. Excerpt from TIME magazine:
Intrepid investors will not have to brave car bombs, checkpoints or interminable traffic jams much longer. In the next two months, all investors — foreign and Iraqi — will be able to buy and sell in a matter of minutes, once the ISX's computers and servers are switched on. Servers, computers and electronic boards have arrived but are not yet operational. Three backup generators will make sure the market will be running nonstop, despite widespread electrical brownouts across the Iraqi capital.
"You will be able to buy at 10 in the morning and sell at 10:05," says CEO Taha Abdul-Salam, a short man with a buzz cut and a pistol holster under his jacket.
[...] Currently the ISX represents 94 companies and works with 49 licensed brokerages. The total trading volume for 2007 was $354 million, a 250% increase over 2006. The ISX has a helpful website, with regular updates; Taha says the ISX has received 17 billion Iraqi dinars, or $14 million, in the past five months from investors in the region. Banks are 80% of the volume, followed by services, manufacturing, hotels and agriculture.
