Building on a solid 5.5% gain in 2022, the Bahrain Stock Exchange All-Share Index extended its winning streak to three years, rising 4% in 2023.
Bahrain was the third best performing market in the GCC in 2023.
The index ended the year at 1,971.49 points. Throughout the year, the benchmark reached its highest point of 1,992.41 points towards the end of July 2023.
However, the index declined for the next three months and only partially recovered in November 2023 and December 2023.
Sector performance was skewed to the upside, with a mix of advancers and decliners.
Five of the bourse’s seven indexes ended the year in the red, while two ended in the green.
The Consumer Goods sector rose 5.1%, posting the biggest gain of the year on the exchange, followed by the Materials sector, which rose 5% to end the year at 5,260.3 points.
The latter is comprised of just one company, Alba, whose soaring stock price underscored the aluminum smelter’s strong financial performance during the year.
Nas Corp led the chart of rising stocks on the Bahrain Stock Exchange with a 164.1% increase in share price in 2023.
Al Salam Bank Bahrain and Arab Insurance Group were the second and third place winners with share price increases of 110% and 81.8% respectively.
Among the declining stocks, Bahrain Commercial Properties topped the list with a 49.8% year-on-year share price decline, followed by Innovest and Bahrain Car Park Company, which fell 49.3% and 28.6%, respectively.
Trading activity on the Bahrain Stock Exchange increased sharply in 2023, with total trading volume increasing by 24.1% to BD 210.7 million from BD 169.8 million in 2022.
Similarly, total annual trading volume increased by 45.4% from 169.8 million shares in 2022 to 210.7 million shares in 2023.
Alba topped the annual traded value chart with BD72.8 million worth of shares traded, followed by Bahrain’s Al Salam Bank and GFH Financial Group, which traded shares worth BD45.7 million and BD44.1 million, respectively.
In terms of trading volume, Al Salam Bank Bahrain topped the list with 290.8 million shares purchased during the year.
GFH Financial Group and Aruba witnessed 170.4 million and 65.8 million shares of their respective shares traded during 2023.
Zooming out, the GCC stock market underperformed most global stock markets and ended 2023 with one of the world’s lowest annual gains.
The MSCI GCC index recorded a 3.7% increase to end the year at 714.69 points, after recording mixed performance at the country level.
The index trend showed erratic performance throughout the year. Of the seven exchanges, four recorded profits and three closed in the red.
The best-performing market in the region was Dubai with a 21.7% increase, followed by Saudi Arabia with a double-digit increase of 14.2%.
The GCC sector performance chart showed that all sectors were in the green and generally increasing. Pharmaceutical (+75.8%), insurance (+57.9%) and healthcare (+37.7%) indices outperformed the year, while weighted sectors such as banking and energy lost 6.1% and 20%, respectively. showed a small return.
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