The AFC Iraq Fund was down 0.5% in January, outperforming its benchmark, the Rabee Securities RSISX USD Index, which was down 5.0% for the month.
For the third month in a row, the decline in the parallel market’s price of the Iraqi Dinar (IQD) versus the US Dollar (USD) negatively affected the market’s performance by reversing the index’s 5.5% increase in IQD terms to a decline of 5.0% in USD terms, and the fund’s 9.0% increase in IQD terms into a 0.5% decline in USD terms.
However, unlike the prior two months, the market has started looking through and discounting the currency’s volatility as seen from the market action and, in particular, those of banks and industrial stocks – two groups that stand out as net beneficiaries of the depreciation of the market price of the IQD vs the USD.
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