Institutional investors buy 47.7% of ADX shares in 2015

Citizens during circulation - at Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange

Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange has issued some interesting statistics on 2015, a year marred by oil price turbulence that eroded share prices, indices and market capitalisation across the region.
But, some of the encouraging trends that emerged in the year would change the way the stock markets are run in the GCC region.
It all changed after the ADX was upgraded to MSCI Index Emerging Market status from Frontier Markets, in 2014, which has given greater attention to Abu Dhabi's shares internationally.
Foreign investment in the shares listed on the bourse rose strongly by 65 per cent year-on-year to Dh5.8 billion in the year.
The number of foreign institutional investors registering in ADX in 2015 was 709 institutions, compared with 1106 in 2014, taking the tally to 4737 institutions.
The total Investor Numbers issued by the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange since inception and up to the end of 2015 was 958,699. In 2015, 8192 Investor Numbers were issued compared with 19,254 in previous year.
The Investor Numbers issued in 2015 were distributed among 7386 individuals, 801 institutions, and five government agencies. Institutional Investment recorded a net trading value of Dh7.2 billion in 2015 compared with Dh2.1 billion in 2014, representing an increase of around 243 per cent.
As such, Institutional Investment represented 47.7 per cent of the overall trading value in the Exchange compared to 52.3 per cent for individuals in 2015.
While in 2014, Institutional Investment represented 37.6 per cent of the overall trading value in the Exchange compared to 62.4 per cent for individuals.
Investors from the UK topped the list with Dh9.7 billion, followed by investors from the USA with Dh9.5, investors from Jordan were third with Dh4.2 billion, Luxemburg investors followed closely with Dh3.7 billion, Egyptian investors were fifth in total trading value reaching Dh2.2 billion, whereas other nationalities total trading value reached Dh23 billion.
Foreigners bought 12.1 billion shares valuing Dh28.7 billion, with shares sold amounting to approximately 11.4 billion shares, worth an estimated of Dh22.9 billion.
The market value of shares owned by foreign investors, non-UAE nationals, has increased eight per cent year-on-year in 2015 to reach Dh40.1 billion.
Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange General Index plunged 221 points during 2015, closing at 4307 points, a decrease of 4.9 per cent year-on-year.
ADX index witnessed a continuous rise during the second and third quarters of the year 2015, reaching its highest during the third quarter of 2015 at 4834 points.
Total trading dropped 58.8 per cent year-on-year during 2015 amounting to around Dh60 billion. In April the highest amount of Dh7.8 billion worth of shares were traded.
Average daily trading value in 2015 reached Dh241 million, compared to Dh583 million in 2014, a decrease of 58 per cent.
Total trading volume witnessed a plunge of 52.5 per cent year-on-year to 28 billion shares compared with about 58 billion shares in 2014.
ADX's market capitalisation Dh447 billion at the end of 2015, of which about Dh411 billion was for domestic companies.
- haseeb@khaleejtimes.com