YEREVAN, March 15. / ARKA /. The assets of Armenian investment companies in January 2013 increased by 5% compared to December 2012, amounting to 24.8 billion drams, according to the monthly bulletin of the Central Bank of Armenia. The total capital of investment companies dropped by 0.8 percent from 2012 December to 3.8 billion drams.

Their retained earnings at the end of January stood at 664.5 million drams, up from 616.6 million drams at the end of December 2012 (7.8% growth). According to the bulletin, the purchase and sale of securities at the stock market in January rose by 6.6 percent from last year’s December to 26.8 billion drams.

The volume of transactions with corporate bonds fell in January by 81.8% to 84.7 million drams, while the volume of purchases and sales of shares increased 2.1 times to 761 million drams. Transactions with government bonds in January also declined by 69.1% to 1.7 billion drams.

Transaction in Repo contracts in the reporting period of time amounted to 24.2 billion drams against 18.6 billion drams in December (up 29.8%) According to the Central Bank, the bulk of transactions in securities – 90.3 percent- were REPO transactions, transactions with government bonds accounted for 6.5% of the total turnover of securities, transactions with shares accounted for 2.8% and transactions with corporate bonds – for 0.3%.

There are 21 banks in Armenia providing investment services and also 9 investment companies. ($ 1 - 414.24 drams). -0-