The Bahrain Stock Exchange (BSE) organised a policy guidelines workshop for over 75 top officials representing listed companies and brokers.

BSE director Fouad Rashid delivered the welcome speech at the workshop on "Guidelines on Issuers' Key Person Dealing Policies".

Fouad said that BSE has prepared these guidelines in co-ordination with CBB and they aim to facilitate trading by key persons in securities listed on BSE, reduce the administrative burden on issuers and key persons and to establish greater transparency at BSE and ensure a fair environment for the trading of all investors in the market.

Trading and members affairs head Ebrahim Al Aradi and clearing and settlement head Abdullah Abdin made a presentation where they briefed the audience on the contents of the guidelines on issuers' key persons dealing policies.

Key persons are defined as members of the issuer's board of directors, senior management, the issuer itself, and such other persons as decided by the issuer's board.

The guidelines also allow key persons to deal during the year without any restrictions provided that they are obliged to the rules of the issuer's policy in this regard.

The presentation highlighted the definitions that are mentioned in the guidelines as well as the objectives expected to be achieved from implementing these guidelines.

In addition, the audience was briefed about the obligations that issuers and key persons must comply with.

Guidelines stated that any conduct by relevant parties that contravenes the provisions of an issuer's dealing policy must be dealt with severely. Guidelines also require that the courses of action and penalties that an issuer may impose should be clearly stated in the dealing policy.

Stock markets may boom 

Meanwhile, the Bahraini stock market can expect to see a boom in the coming weeks if the findings of a new US study are to prove accurate, said a study undertaken by the University of New Hampshire

Stocks in largely Muslim nations outperform during the month of Ramadan, it added.

A greater sense of optimism in people over the course of the holy month is cited as the reason for the boom by Iranian-born finance professor Ahmad Etebari, who led the research team.

Between the stock markets of Bahrain, Oman, Turkey, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, the report identified a trend of considerably higher returns during Ramadan than through the rest of the year.

According to the study, the average returns for the 15 countries were 38 per cent during the month of Ramadan between 1989 and 2007, compared to an average of 4.3 per cent during ordinary months. – TradeArabia News Service