Shape of things to come for GCC Islamic Fixed Income Instruments

By the time everyone reads this in October 2019, government bonds and sukuk issued by Saudi Arabia and four other Gulf states have joined (or about to join) JP Morgan’s emerging markets bond indexes. Their inclusion was a gradual one. It started on Jan. 31 and it will be completed by Sept. 30. By now these states should have realized more than original weightage in the index (i.e. to be accounted more than 11.4% of the benchmark, a big change in one year). This is due to the facts that these states have issued more debt this year, when the early figures over their weightage in the index were released early this year.

Less volatility

The move was expected to have attracted a total of around $30 billion of new foreign investment into their debt. But what is i...