Middle East equity research poll 2007: Regional research starts to blossom

Morocco, with only a handful of local banks producing at best acceptable research, is perhaps a far-flung example. Even so, throughout the Middle East and North Africa region, truly balanced research of the kind expected in more established financial centres is still elusive. "You hardly ever see ‘sell’ recommendations. Any time you see a rating of ‘hold’, that is a sort of nice way to say ‘sell’. Most investors understand that," says Khaled Majeed, founder and investment manager of London-based Mena Capital, a fund that invests solely in the Middle East and North Africa region. According to Raed Zawaideh, a trader at state-owned government fund the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia), less than 5% of research in the region is negative. When markets in the Middle East start to plunge, as many of them did in 2005/06, much of the research simply dries up, says Zawaideh.