The Iraq Stock Exchange ('ISX), formally the Baghdad Stock Exchange, is a stock exchange in Baghdad, Iraq.

The Iraq Stock Exchange was incorporated and began operations in June 2004. It operates under the oversight of the Iraq Securities Commission, an independent commission modeled after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. June Reed is an American adviser to the stock exchange.

Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it was called the Baghdad Stock Exchange and was operated by the Iraqi Ministry of Finance. Now it is a self-regulated organization similar to the New York Stock Exchange, owned by the 50 or so member brokerages.

As of 2005, the ISX was Iraq's only stock exchange. It opened in 2004 with 15 companies, and now lists more than 100 companies. Turnover of shares in 2005 was approximately $5 million USD per trading session. Major stocks included Bank of Baghdad, Baghdad Soft Drinks Co, Iraqi Tufted Carpets Co, Hader Marble, and Altherar Agriculture.

Aswat al-Iraq news agency covers every trading session with reports published on the web in English and Arabic

Iraq (/ɪˈræk/ or ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːk/; Arabic: العراق‎ al-‘Irāq); officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic:  جمهورية العراق (help·info) Jumhūriyyat al-‘Irāq), is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.

Iraq borders Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Jordan to the southwest and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south. Iraq has a narrow section of coastline measuring 58 km (36 mi) on the northern Persian Gulf. The capital city, Baghdad is in the center-east of the country.

Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run through the center of Iraq, flowing from northwest to southeast. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the steppe and desert landscape that covers most of Western Asia.

Historically, Iraq was the center of the Abbasid Arabic Islamic Empire. Iraq has been known to the west by the Greek toponym 'Mesopotamia' (Land between the rivers) and has been home to continuous successive civilizations since the 6th millennium BC. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is often referred to as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of writing, law and the wheel. At different periods in its history, Iraq was the center of the indigenous Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid empires. It was also part of the Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires, and under British control as a League of Nations mandate.

A stock exchange is a form of exchange which provides services for stock brokers and traders to trade stocks, bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for issue and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, and capital events including the payment of income and dividends. Securities traded on a stock exchange include shares issued by companies, unit trusts, derivatives, pooled investment products and bonds.

To be able to trade a security on a certain stock exchange, it must be listed there. Usually, there is a central location at least for record keeping, but trade is increasingly less linked to such a physical place, as modern markets are electronic networks, which gives them advantages of increased speed and reduced cost of transactions. Trade on an exchange is by members only.

The initial offering of stocks and bonds to investors is by definition done in the primary market and subsequent trading is done in the secondary market. A stock exchange is often the most important component of a stock market. Supply and demand in stock markets are driven by various factors that, as in all free markets, affect the price of stocks (see stock valuation).

Bartle B. Bull (born 1970) is an American writer, magazine editor and journalist specialising in foreign affairs and the Middle East. Bull is editor of the Middle East Monitor and foreign editor of Prospect, a leading British political and cultural magazine.

Bull has written from the Middle East for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph, Foreign Policy, Die Welt and many other publications. His work, widely syndicated in Europe and the United States, has been featured in Corriere della Sera, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. He appears frequently on radio and television and especially for the BBC, NPR, Fox News and Al Jazeera.

Bull has done seven journalistic tours of duty in Iraq^{[citation needed]} since the start of the insurgency in the spring of 2004 and is the only western journalist to have been embedded with the Mahdi Army in Iraq.^{[citation needed]}

According to the Wall Street Journal Bull's next book Babylon is an account of the long relationship between Iraq, Iran and the West published in 2008 by Grove and Atlantic.^{[citation needed]} According to his own website other books by Bartle B. Bull include a child's book A Fox's Tale and a non-fiction travel-adventure work Around the Sacred Sea: Mongolia and Lake Baikal on Horseback.

Michael Monroe Lewis (born October 15, 1960) is an American non-fiction author and financial journalist. His bestselling books include The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Liar's Poker, The New New Thing, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, Panic, Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood and Boomerang. He was a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, 2009–present.

Lewis was born in New Orleans to corporate lawyer J. Thomas Lewis and community activist Diana Monroe Lewis. He attended the college preparatory Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. He attended Princeton University where he received a BA degree (cum laude) in Art History in 1982 and was a member of the Ivy Club.

He went on to work with New York art dealer Daniel Wildenstein. He enrolled in the London School of Economics, and received his MA degree in Economics in 1985. Lewis was hired by Salomon Brothers and moved to New York for their training program. He worked at their London office as a bond salesman. He resigned to write Liar's Poker and become a financial journalist.