RIYADH: Bourses in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries remained flat in August with a positive bias, driven by an adverse performance from energy stocks.
The MSCI GCC Index, which captures the performance of indices in the region, was up 0.3 percent in August but registered a year-to-date gain of 7.7 percent, a Kamco Invest report revealed.
Dubai outperformed regional peers with a monthly return of 3.2 percent, closely followed by Abu Dhabi and Oman, which added 2.2 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar edged up between 0.4 and 0.7 percent, whereas the Kuwaiti bourse recorded a marginal loss of 0.1 percent.
In terms of year-to-date performance, Abu Dhabi continued to lead with a 16.3 percent return. Qatar and Oman were next with 15.5 percent and 11 percent, respectively.
Investors rushed to trade more securities in August, pushing the volume traded to a four-month high of 23.8 billion shares worth $60.4 billion, against 13.2 billion stocks worth $38.4 billion traded a month ago.
Large-cap sectors underperformed during the month, with listed energy firms posting their biggest monthly decline of 3.5 percent and bank stocks down 0.3 percent.
This was slightly offset by healthy gains in consumer durable goods, food and drugs retailing, and materials sectors by 9.7 percent, 6.3 percent, and 5.5 percent, respectively.
