MANAMA: The third consecutive month of declines saw Bahrain Bourse (BHB) ending June 2022 down 4.2 per cent, even as the exchange posted the third-best performance in the GCC.
Analysis by Kuwait-based Kamco Invest shows monthly declines in six out of seven sectoral indices last month lowered year-to-date (YTD) gains for the Bahrain All-Share Index to single digits at 2.4pc.
For the second month in a row, the materials sector reported the biggest monthly drop, falling 7.5pc followed by financials services and communications indices with declines of 3.9pc and 3.4pc, respectively.
Bucking the trend, the industrials index recorded the only monthly gain among sectors, ending 1.3pc higher.
In terms of YTD performance, the materials index topped with a surge of 44.4pc while the communication services index plunged 15.2pc.
The monthly stock performance chart was topped by Bahrain National Holding with a 4.4pc monthly return followed by Al Baraka Banking Group and Basrec with gains of 4.3pc and 2.3pc, respectively.
Meanwhile, the monthly decliners list mainly included stocks from the financials sector, led by GFH Financial Group (down 12.3pc), followed by Ithmaar Holding (down 11.1pc) and Esterad (down 9.6pc).
Trading activity on the exchange receded during June 2022 with volumes shrinking 34.4pc to 48.1 million shares from 73.3m shares during May 2022.
Total value traded also saw a steep drop of 52pc to BD11.7m last month from BD24.3m in May 2022.
GFH Financial Group topped the monthly volumes chart with 10.9m traded shares followed by Al Salam Bank Bahrain and Alba which saw 8.2m and 4.4m of their shares change hands during the month, respectively.
On the monthly value traded chart, Alba topped this list with BD5.3m worth of shares changing hands during the month, followed by GFH Financial Group and Ahli United Bank which saw BD3.2m and BD2.2m values of their shares traded, respectively.
In economic news, the World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report raised Bahrain’s economic growth forecast to 3.5pc for 2022 in contrast with global growth prospects which saw a downgrade.
The positive revision of the kingdom’s GDP growth is attributed to be an indication of the positive effect that Bahrain government’s economic recovery plans are having.
In October 2021, the government unveiled a $30 billion multi-year plan for strategic investments to boost non-oil growth.
Meanwhile, June 2022 was the second consecutive month of reversal for the GCC aggregate index tracking weak global trends as inflation and recession fears kept investors on the edge.
The MSCI GCC index witnessed a steep drop of 9pc last month, bigger than most other global equity markets.
Performance within the GCC was mostly negative with Saudi Arabia reporting a double digit drop of 10.8pc, the biggest in the region, followed by Abu Dhabi and Qatari benchmarks with slumps of 6.8pc and 5.6pc, respectively.
Oman, on the other hand, was the only market that closed in the green with a marginal gain of 0.2pc.
Nevertheless, despite the two consecutive months of decline, the GCC aggregate index remained in the green in terms of first half (H1) 2022 performance, up 2.8pc with all headline GCC benchmarks in the green barring Oman that reported a decline of 0.2pc.
Abu Dhabi continued to boast double-digit returns of 10.4pc during H1-2022.
The sector performance chart for the month showed declines across the board with all the sectors in the red.
The pharma and biotech index reported the steepest decrease of 19.4pc followed by consumer durables and apparel (down 14.5pc) and diversified financials (down 12.9pc).
Banks and energy indices also dropped by 8.7pc and 5pc, respectively.
However, in terms of H1-2022 performance, energy (up 16.6pc) and banks (up 6.9pc) still feature in the top five performing indices.
Pharma and biotech were the worst performers, plunging 32.3pc followed by consumer durables and apparel and diversified financials with slippages of 30.2pc and 13.3pc, respectively.
avinash@gdnmedia.bh
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