FEDERATION OF EURO-ASIAN STOCK EXCHANGES
SEMI ANNUAL REPORT OCTOBER 2008
AMMAN STOCK EXCHANGE
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Jalil Tarif
Chief Executive Officer
The Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) has
recently accomplished many projects aiming at
enhancing market efficiency and upgrading the
services provided to the market participants.
The ASE in cooperation with Dow Jones
launched the Dow Jones ASE 100 Index. The
index is a broad benchmark index that tracks
the performance of the 100 largest stocks
listed at the ASE based on free-float market
capitalization. The Dow Jones ASE 100 Index
was developed to meet the demand for index-
based products at the ASE and eventually to
replace the ASE general price index. The Dow
Jones ASE 100 is expected to further enhance
transparency, visibility and accessibility of the
performance of the ASE for Local, regional and
international market participants by applying
Dow Jones Indexes' well-known and widely
used index methodology.
For the first time, the Jordan Securities
Commission issued a Code of Corporate
Governance for the companies listed at the
ASE. The introduction of this code is
considered as an important step forward in the
field of monitoring and transparency over the
FUTURE OUTLOOK
The ASE will embark on a number of key
projects that will ensure maintaining the lead that
the ASE has amongst Arabic and regional stock
exchanges:
• Establish Jordan National Financial Center.
This center will contain: the ASE, the SDC,
Financial Studies Center, Brokers’ Offices,
Investors’ Gallery, and many other facilities.
• Upgrade the ASE Trading System. In this
regard a contract was signed with AtosEuronext
Market Solutions and GL Trade for EUR 2.5
public companies and in preserving the rights
of all stakeholders in these companies.
The ASE started a new project to build the
Jordan National Financial Center. His Majesty
King Abdullah II laid the foundation stone for
this project. This center will contain: the ASE,
Securities Depositary Center, Financial Studies
Institute, Brokers’ Offices, Investors’ Gallery
and many other facilities. The cost for this
project is expected to reach US$ 100 million.
The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) has
accepted the full membership of the ASE
during its annual meeting in October 2007,
which was held in Shanghai/China. This is
attributed to the developments of Jordan
capital market in general and the technical,
legislative developments of the ASE in
particular, besides abiding by transparency
and disclosure principles.
To enhance the international exposure, the ASE
held Jordan Capital Market Day in March 2008
in London in cooperation with London Stock
Exchange. This day was a great opportunity for
Jordanian companies to raise funds and attract
million. The new trading system is V900 and is a
fully Linux environment. It should be mentioned
that this system is applied in major stock
exchanges. This system will be more flexible to
implement market rules and will highly improve
system capacity and lower latency.
• Demutualization of the ASE. The ASE shall
become Shareholding Company totally owned
by the Government as a first step. In the second
step the Government will sell stakes to financial
institutions, brokerage firms, international
institutions, public, and other parties.
foreign investment. Also the ASE will organize
the 2nd Capital Market Conference in New
York in September 2008.
As for the ASE performance, the ASE Free
Float Weighted Index at the end of July 2008
stood at 4630 points compared with 3675 at
the year 2007 with an increase by 26%. ASE
index weighted by Market Capitalization closed
at 10399 points at the end of July 2008
compared with 7519 points at the end of 2007,
an increase by 27.7%. Trading value by the
end of July 2008 reached US$ 21.3 billion with
an increase of 31.7% compared to the same
period of 2007. The number of shares traded
increased by 54% compared with the same
period of 2007, reaching 3.9 billion shares, and
the number of transactions increased by 31%,
reaching 2.7 million transactions. The ASE
market capitalization reached US$41.2 billion
by the end of July 2007, with an increase of
81.6% over the end of 2007, representing
358% of the GDP. The net investment of non-
Jordanian investors increased by US$ 330.5
million by the end of July 2008. As a result,
non-Jordanian investors ownership in the ASE
market capitalization increased to 50.9%.
• Introduce Internet trading. The legal and
technical structure for this project has been
completed.
• Adopt new marketing strategy. The ASE has
adopted a marketing and promotion strategy
based on three main fields: Awareness,
Marketing and Media. The implementation of this
strategy started in the 2007 and will continue in
the coming years.
• A new website now is under construction, with
a new look and theme, many information and
features will be added to the new site.
• Introduce new financial instruments such as
ETFs and derivatives.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Contact Name Mr. Sami Hattab
E-mail [email protected]
Website www.exchange.jo
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