Bahrain’s equity market sees third-best monthly performance in GCC

Bahrain’s equity market sees third-best monthly performance in GCC

Bahrain’s equity market rallied to post the third-best monthly performance in the GCC last month amidst high volatility since the start of the new year.

Analysis by Kuwait-based Kamco Invest shows the benchmark All Share index at Bahrain Bourse registered a gain of 1.7pc to close January 2023 at 1,928.24 points.

In terms of sectoral performance, the materials index, which only has one constituent company (Alba), dominated the rest of the sectoral indices surging 11.9pc to close the month at 5,604.9 points.

Alba’s share price rise was mainly attributed to the robust production last year in which the company hit a new historic record of 1.6 million metric tonnes with a year-on-year growth of 2.5pc.

The industrial and financial indices advanced 2.7pc and 0.5pc, respectively, whereas the communication services index topped the decliners chart with a slide of 3.6pc mainly dragged down by Batelco’s 4.2pc slump during January 2023.

Recording a 2.3pc downturn during the month, the real estate index closed at 2,938.1 mainly due to a 2.4pc drop in the share-price of Seef Properties.

According to Bloomberg, the monthly gainers chart at BHB was led by Nass Corp which saw its share price soar 38.5pc followed by Alba and Ithmaar Holdings that saw increases of