Beirut: Solidere, Lebanon’s largest property developer, advanced to the highest level in two years on speculation the country will elect a president, ending a deadlock that left the nation without a leader for more than two years.

The Beirut-based company jumped 7.7 per cent as of 11:04am local time to $12.65 (Dh46.5), the highest level since August 2014. That takes the stock’s winning streak to five days, the longest since November 2015, when investor speculation that political leaders would agree on a presidential candidate also sent the stock soaring.

Former Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri will endorse former army general and lawmaker Michel Aoun, an ally of Iran-backed Hezbollah group, in a televised speech at 5pm local time, reported Future TV, a station owned by the Hariri family. The nomination would tip the balance in favour of Aoun’s nomination as president, potentially ending a deadlock that began in May 2014, when the last leader’s term concluded.

An end to the standoff would come as a relief to the Arab world’s most indebted nation. Beset by sectarian crises and regional proxy conflicts, Lebanon’s $51 billion economy has buckled as more than a million refugees entered the country to escape the Syrian conflict, which has blocked the nation’s only overland trade route and kept Gulf Arab tourists away.

“The probability of electing a president has increased and people are trading on the back of that,” Faysal Barbir, a Beirut-based director of the capital markets division at FFA Private Bank. Solidere “trades as a political proxy rather than a real estate company,” and a resolution to the presidential deadlock would see its share price rise to its fair value, which is between 40 to 50 per cent higher than Wednesday’s close, Barbir said.

Traders exchanged 166,000 shares on Thursday, the most since November 2015. The five-day rally boosted the stock 32 per cent, lifting the equity’s 14-day relative strength index to 83, well above a level that some analysts see as a sign the stock has risen too quickly.

Solidere was founded in 1994 by late Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, Saad Hariri’s father, to rebuild Beirut’s city center.