Iraqi Stock Exchange

Think trading on the New York Stock Exchange is risky in its 2 to 3 year roller coaster ride? Try investing with the Iraqi Stock Exchange. Back earlier this year trading sessions were routinely canceled for suicide bombing threats (employees can't get to work when the city is locked down in these kind of events) and other simple things like lack of electrical power because of Baghdad's intermittent grid.

The Iraq Stock Exchange opened in June 2004 after replacing the Baghdad Stock Exchange being in place since before the 2003 invasion of Iraq by coalition forces. In 2004 the ISX opened with 15 companies being represented and at the present time there are now more than 100 companies on the exchange. When the exchange opened in 2004, trading was done th eold fashioned was, with pen and paper and traders yelling trades across the floor where brokers then wrote on whiteboards the current price of a company's stock.

Fortunately in February of 2009 that all changed and a computerized system of keeping track of trades, but not electronic trading itself, was put in place. On April 19, 2009 electronic trading was put into place and there are currently only 5 stocks available to be traded that way with more being added in the next several months.

The Iraqi Stock Exchange is small compared to the NYSE as in 2006 there were only 92 trading sessions held trading a total of 58 billion shares. The trades had a total value of 146 billion Iraqi Dinars or $146 million USD and were actually 38,000 individual trades made. Currently the trading floor is only open 6 hours a week.

There you have a simple run down of the ISX as a fledgling market. The market is currently dominated by very wealthy Iraqis and the trades are called in from outside the country. Is it worth your time to invest in this kind of market? Maybe you should just buy Iraqi dinars on eBay and hope they will go up some day.