Reversal of the bull run — Central Bank

However, in the second half of the year, the market declined sharply and all the gains achieved were wiped out by year’s end, the bank said, noting the CPI closed the year at 1,067.4, 0.7 percent lower than in the previous year.

This represented a reversal of the bull run in 2004 when growth of 54.8 percent was registered. Market capitalisation fell by 0.1 percent and the volume of shares traded also decreased by 33.1 percent from 312.5 million, one year earlier, the bank said.

“All the sub-indices with the exception of the Manufacturing I, Manufacturing II and Trading closed the year at lower levels. Of these three, the Trading sub-index recorded the largest gain of 38.2 percent with Manufacturing I and II increasing by 6.2 percent and 21.1 percent, respectively.

The report said during the first three months of 2006, the market continued to be bearish, with the CPI and ATI falling by 10.2 percent and 11.5 percent, respectively.

The number of shares traded amounted to 41.1 million with a value of $715.1 million, while market capitalisation was $97.1 billion. By comparison, the volume of shares traded in the first quarter of 2005 totalled 54.4 million valued at $1,026.7 million while market capitalisation was $139.3 billion.