Middle East equity research poll 2007: Award Winners
AT THE BEGINNING of May, stocks on the Bourse de Casablanca were trading on an average of 22 times earnings, the highest P/E ratio in the region. It was the end of a long bull run. But even as prices began to fall, most of the research in the country continued to be overwhelmingly positive about company prospects, and in some cases was even more positive than before. 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’.
