Baghdad Broker Dodges Bombs to Rack Up Stock Trades

It was exceptionally cold in Sulaymaniyah, a city in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region, on the morning of Dec. 22. Shwan Taha was sitting in the airport lounge with a bag of gifts, waiting to get back to his wife and children at home in Istanbul.

Just before boarding, he got a call on his mobile phone from Rabee Securities, the Baghdad-based brokerage he owns, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its December issue. The manager was on the line to report that a car bomb had exploded next door at the government anti-corruption agency.