MANAMA: The Bahrain Bourse (BHB) closed January 2021 with the biggest monthly decline among GCC stock markets, after it had reported gains for the previous two months.

Kuwait-based Kamco Invest’s GCC Equity Markets report for last month shows the Bahrain All Share index closed at 1,462.61 points with a decline of 1.8 per cent, the highest in eight months, after seeing consistent marginal declines since the start of the year.

The sector performance chart showed large-cap sectors in the red that dragged the index down despite positive performance reported by Insurance and Investment indices at 3.8pc and 0.3pc, respectively. The Commercial Banks and Industrial indices saw the biggest declines during the month at 2.5pc for the two benchmarks, closely followed by the Services index with a decline of 2.4pc.

Trading activity on the bourse improved significantly during the month.

Total volume of shares traded during the month increased by more than 50pc to reach 122.7 million shares as compared with 79.4m shares during December-2020.

On the other hand, the value of shares traded during January 2021 increased by 18.9pc to BD16.6m as compared with BD14m during December 2020.

GFH Financial Group topped the monthly volume chart with 57.4m shares traded during the month.

Zain Bahrain was next with 36.9m traded shares followed by AUB and Batelco with 9.9m and 3.6m traded shares, respectively.

GFH also topped the monthly value traded chart for the first month of the new year with BD10.1m worth of shares changing hands during the month.

AUB was next on the value traded chart with BD7.2m worth of trades followed by Zain Bahrain and Batelco at BD4.2m and BD1.95m respectively.

The best performer during the month was Khaleeji Commercial Bank, which gained 5.7pc, although trades in the stock remained thin during the month.

GFH Financial Group closely followed with a monthly gain of 5.6pc followed by Esterad Investment and Inovest with gains of 3.3pc and 1.9pc, respectively.

On the monthly decliners side, APM Terminals Bahrain topped with its shares sliding 16.7pc after the managing director of the company resigned during the last week of the month.

Bahrain Islamic Bank was next on the decliners chart with a decline of 9pc during January-2021 followed by Bahrain Commercial Facilities and Zain Bahrain with declines of 6.9pc and 5pc respectively.

According to Bloomberg, Kuwait’s Zain increased its stake in Zain Bahrain from 55.4pc to 65pc by purchasing 35.335m shares of the company at a price of BD0.115 per share.

On the economic front, Bahrain raised $2 billion in a three-tranche bond sale during the month bringing total outstanding debt by the country to nearly $39.8bn or 118pc of GDP, according to a Reuters report.

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