The Tribune

The Bahamas International Securities Exchange’s (BISX) All-Share Index maintained its year-long climb by closing up 2.94 percent for the first nine months of 2019.

The trend, which began in the 2018 fourth quarter, reversed the 4.82 percent decline suffered by the Index during the same period last year.

“For the nine-month period ending September 30, 2019, the BISX All-Share Index closed at 2,171.36,” BISX said. “This represented a year-to-date increase of 61.95 or 2.94 percent. By comparison, for the nine-month period ending September 28, 2018, the BISX All-Share Index closed at 1,964.04. This represented a year-to-date decrease of 99.53 or 4.82 percent.

The BISX All-Share Index, which excludes debt instruments such as preference shares and bonds from its calculations, measures only the collective share price movements among listed equity stocks. It does not account for dividend payments, which are equally if not more important in delivering investment returns to Bahamian shareholders.

Meanwhile, BISX said its total market capitalisation stood at $5.773bn at end-September 2019 when equity and debt listings were combined. “As at September 30, 2019, the market was comprised of 19 ordinary shares with a market capitalisation of $4.983bn,” the exchange added.

“In addition, there were eight preference shares with a market capitalisation of $277m and 13 bonds with a face value of $513m.” However, the 2.94 percent upward movement in the BISX All-Share Index for the first nine months of 2019 was less then the improvements enjoyed by other global stock market indices, which enjoyed increases ranging from 4.74 percent to 18.59 percent.

Trading volumes and values were below prior year comparatives for the first nine months of 2019, with BISX revealing: “Trading volume for the nine-month period January 2, 2019, to September 28, 2019, was 5.934m shares for a value of $28.927m. By comparison, trading volume for the nine-month period January 1, 2018, to September 28, 2018, was 7.211m shares for a value of $35.481m

“Trading volume for the three-month period July 1, 2019, to September 30, 2019, was 1.478m shares for a value of $7.058m. By comparison, trading volumes for the three-month period July 1, 2018, to September 28, 2018, were 3.343m shares for a value of $13.347m.”

And the exchange added: “For the nine-month period from January 2, 2019, to September 30, 2019, the average volume per trading day was 31,806 shares for a value of $155,688. By comparison, for the nine-month period from January 2, 2018, to September 28, 2018, the average volume per trading day was 38,501 shares for an average value of $188,801.”

Commonwealth Bank remained the most-widely traded stock on BISX in terms of both volume and value for the first nine months, accounting for 31.3 percent of shares traded and 28 percent of their value. FOCOL Holdings stood at second place in both categories, accounting for 22.2 percent of volume and 14.8 percent of value.