Azerbaijan Securities Market Collapsed

In the first quarter of this year, the market for government and corporate securities in Azerbaijan was 706.7 million manat, which is only 17.6% of the figure for the same period in 2014.

According to the State Securities Committee, the government securities market collapsed evidently: in the first quarter of 2014 turnover of government securities amounted to 3 billion 436,500,000 manat and for the same period this year the trade in securities was in the amount of 61 million manat. There were no placements of government bonds of the Ministry of Finance or notes of the Central Bank for the three months.

Due to doubling the secondary market for corporate bonds (mainly bonds of the Mortgage Fund under the Central Bank), the corporate market (645.7 million manat) increased by 14%. Market shares amounted to 53 million manat (-77%) and corporate bonds - 592 700 000 manat (+ 80%). The placement of shares (48.3 million manat) decreased by 79% and the placement of corporate bonds (15 million manat) – by 60%.

Note that on the background of passivity in the stock market the legal market of Forex intensified at the Baku Stock Exchange. Since the beginning of this year, the turnover of derivative securities on more than 20 thousand deals equaled 4,179,400,000 manat. Investors show interest in derivatives on the basis of currency pairs (4,109,700,000 manat).

It is noteworthy that the interest of borrowers in securities has decreased. For the three months of this year, SSC registered only two operations on pledge of securities. ----08D