ME IPO Activity Declines
Saudi Arabia raises 78% of all IPO capital in the region during 2008 YTD, UAE followed with 10.3% and Egypt with 4.7%.

Don't Expect A Rally
There will be no major Gulf stock market rally in 2009 large enough to wipe out this year's losses.

Ups and Downs
The global property slump that kicked off in the US in 2007 has affected many markets. But, very surprisingly, some markets still rose in 2008, including Egypt, Turkey, Thailand and Russia, cities that were covered in previous pieces. So the question was why did this happen?

New Tools
Case has licensed Abn-Amro Bank to issue open-end certificates, which is the first "plain vanilla" derivative an instrument used to derive other more complex financial derivatives.