13th Place
Amman Stock Exchange rising
There is a popular saying, probably based on old mythology, that says that when the 40 days of winter (المربعانية) start dry, that means the rest of the season will be dry. And if it starts rainy, the rest will be wet.
I, like many others, am superstitious when it comes to these signals. If a stock market starts off on a high note on its first day of trading, this would mean a green and prosperous year.
On the 2nd of January 2025, the Amman Stock Exchange was up 1.28% on the day. At the end of the year, value traded for 2025 reached 2.165 billion JODs (+80% compared to 2024) and the General index was a up a whopping 45.12%, ranking it top 13th in the world (Ghana was first and South Korea was second). 45.12% is better than the max 5% you would get leaving your money at the bank! The stock market went from a market cap of 17.65 billion JODs at the end of 2024 to 26.493 billion JODs at the end of 2025.
Newspapers were fast to celebrate this news on their front pages.
But I am here to be a party pooper, spoil the fun, and pop the bubble.
We shouldn’t be celebrating this news.
There were no new IPOs in 2025. Value traded was very low compared to 2008.
Net International Investment was actually negative (International Buyers minus International Sellers) at -60.95 million JODs (by end of November 2025)
And the reason the market was up is simply due to low liquidity.
Let me explain briefly what low liquidity means:
Let’s take a company like Siniora (ticker SNRA) and look at its order book.
This is not an unknown company. This is a well known brand in the market. And yet its order book looks really sad.
Now let’s say I buy the 500 shares at 4.72 for 2,360 JODs and that the market closes with no other trades. Since the previous close was 4.50, that means the stock is up 4.8%. The market capitalisation of SNRA would then become 154 million JODs. That means: from 1 trade worth 2.36 thousand JODs, the whole company rose in value by 7 million JODs.
This is a problem that stems from low liquidity in the markets usually called the Turnover ratio (and is an important indicator if a stock/index wants to be listed on the MSCI). The turnover ratio is defined as: Total value of shares traded during a period divided by the average market capitalisation for the period.
The turnover ratio for SNRA was 0.36 in 2025. A very low number (it could be positive for long term investors who know that the stock price won’t be too volatile and move way up or way down).
Other companies had turnover ratios of >100-250 which is also a bad indicator (stock manipulation etc.).
To not lose the reader with boring trading technical data, what I want to say is that the reason the market has gone up was mostly due to the 2 most traded companies:
-Jordan Phosphate (ticker JOPH) total value traded in 2025 was 424 million JODs (including block trades) or 19% of total. Turnover ratio: 7.3
and Arab Bank (ticker ARBK) total value traded in 2025 was 254.7 million JODs or 12% of total. Turnover ratio: 6.96
Jordan Electric Power (JOEP) was 3rd with 240 million JODs but its turnover ratio was >97
But it was really due to JOPH carrying not only the mining sector in the market but the whole market. There was strong correlation but the simple fact is: JOPH was up 64.1% during the year (ARBK was up 49.2%) and its market increase represented 31.4% of the total market cap increase. The same can be said of NVDA (and AAPL before that) and the S&P 500.
Does this call for celebration: yes and no. Yes because we haven’t seen such rise in the markets in a long time (ASE was 13th globally but #1 in the Arab World) and No because it kind of feels superficial. I won’t celebrate until we see a new IPO every quarter in the ASE and at least double the daily trading volume. And this is what I hope we see this year in 2026.
Now how did the Stock Exchange do in the first day of the year 2026: it is down 0.38%
Let’s not lose hope though as market cap still went up 0.05% (I also personally believe the horoscope only when it gives me good news and disregard it when it’s bad news; or switch to Chinese horoscope if it has better prospects).
Why did the market go down after an amazing 2025? Were most investors still on holiday?
I personally blame the recent Venezuelan Operation Absolute Resolve ‘kidnapping’.
Not because a publicly listed Jordanian company’s project, signed 10 years ago to build a residential area for $2.5 billion, could be affected (ticker PHNX - price unchanged).
But because I think that it spooked the market, just like in 2020: the year started with the assassination of Suleimani and we all know how that year unfolded. (Despite having an up day of 0.49% for the first day of 2020, the stock market was down 0.53% after the assassination on the second day of trading on the 5th of January 2020 and the whole market was down 13% for the year).
Gallows Humour (to change the gloomy tone)
Statistics have shown that those who have a New Year's resolution (like going to the gym) usually give it up within 2 weeks.
That day is called Quitting Day (usually takes place on the 2nd Friday of January).
When asked about his New Year’s resolution, Trump’s answer was World Peace.
Is this part of his resolution or another quitter’s day?
Anyways the joke and memes coming out of the recent ‘event’ are too funny to not share so here are a few of my favourite things:
