Babitha Rohit

Efficient market hypothesis (EMH) states that financial markets are “informationally efficient”, implying that current prices fully reflect all available information. The present study aims at testing the weak form of market efficiency of the individual stocks listed on the Bahrain Bourse for the period 2011 to 2015. Weak form of EMH is tested using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness of fit test, run test and autocorrelation test. The K-S test result concludes that in general the stock price movement does not follow random walk. The results of the runs test reveals that share prices of seven companies do not follow random walk. Autocorrelation tests reveal that share prices exhibit low to moderate correlation varying from negative to positive values. As the study shows mixed results, it is difficult to conclude the weak form of efficiency of Bahrain Bourse.

Oil export is the major source of revenue for the countries in the Middle East. Their economies are sensitive to fluctuations in oil prices. The present study examines the impact of oil crisis on the performance of selected banks of Kingdom of Bahrain using profitability, efficiency, capital adequacy and liquidity ratios in the pre-crisis and crisis periods. The study reveals that there is no significant difference in the performance of banks in the pre-crisis and crisis period. The results indicate that there is a significant difference in the performance of conventional banks and Islamic banks in the pre-crisis period. However, there is no significant difference in the performance of conventional banks and Islamic banks during the crisis period.