MSX declines by 162 points in October

Muscat: The main index of the Muscat Stock Exchange (MSX) fell by 162 points to close at 4,365 points in October 2022, according to a new report.

“This was MSX's biggest monthly decline in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) during October 2022. In terms of performance of sector indices, all three sector indices on the exchange recorded a decline during the month,” the Kuwait-based investment, research and strategy firm, Kamco Invest said in its report.

The Services Index reported a 5.8 per cent monthly decline during October 2022, the largest fall among the sectors in the exchange to close the month at 5,886.25. The Industrial index followed closely witnessing a monthly fall of 5.35 per cent while the Financial Index recorded a 3.2 per cent fall in comparison, the report said.

The declines over the last two months further lowered the exchange’s year-to-date return which stood at 5.7 per cent at the end of October 2022. Only the Financial Index recorded gains since the start of the year at 6.3 per cent while the Services and Industrial indices recorded declines of 5.6 per cent and 3.1 per cent, respectively.

The monthly stock performance chart showed Al Maha Ceramics topping the chart with a gain of 9.6 per cent followed by Oman Cables and Construction Materials Ind. with gains of 6.9 per cent and 6.8 per cent, respectively.

On the decliners chart, Al Madina Investment Holding topped with a share price slide of 41.2 per cent followed by United Finance and Raysut Cement with declines of 32.6 per cent and 29.3 per cent, respectively.

Trading activity on the exchange remained at one of the lowest levels since the start of the year during October 2022. The monthly value of shares traded reached the second-lowest level since the start of the year reaching OMR43.3 million in October against OMR44.4 million during September 2022, a marginal fall of 2.6 per cent. The monthly volume of shares traded reached the lowest level in 23 months at 174.1 million traded shares, recording a decline of 5.7 per cent as compared to 184.7 million traded shares during September 2022.

Bank Muscat once again topped the monthly value traded chart with trades at OMR13.4 million followed by Oman Telecom and Bank Dhofar with total trades at OMR5.9 million and OMR2.85 million, respectively. In terms of volume of trades, Bank Muscat again topped with 23.2 million shares followed by Bank Dhofar and Bank Nizwa with volume at 19.9 million shares and 13.1 million shares, respectively.

In terms of investor participation, the share of Omanis in total value shares bought increased significantly from 82.6 per cent in September 2022 to 93.21 per cent in October 2022.

Other GCC markets
The performance of GCC equity markets remained mixed during October 2022 with declines reported by Qatar, Bahrain and Dubai exchanges while the rest of the exchanges showed gains, the Kamco Invest report said.

At the aggregate level, however, the MSCI GCC index was up by 2.8 per cent to close at 761.9 points amidst a volatile trade that saw gains during the first and third weeks being partially offset by declines during alternate weeks.

ADX reported the highest monthly returns of 6.8 per cent during October 2022 followed by Kuwait’s All Share index and Saudi Arabia’s TASI with gains of 3.0 per cent and 2.3 per cent, respectively.

In terms of year-to-date 2022 performance, ADX further strengthened its lead in the region with a gain of 22.7 per cent followed by Qatar with gains of 6.8 per cent.
The GCC sector performance chart for the month was skewed towards gainers with the Consumer Durable & Apparel index leading with a return of 7.8 per cent followed by the transportation and healthcare indices with gains of 6.6 per cent and 6.2 per cent, respectively.

Large-cap sectors like Banks and Materials showed low-single-digit gains of around 2.0 per cent, whereas the Energy index was the third-biggest monthly decliner with a fall of 1.4 per cent.

Meanwhile, after two consecutive months of declines, key global markets witnessed a strong rebound during October 2022 to reach the highest level in more than five weeks with a gain of 7.1 per cent.

Gains were mainly led by beliefs that the oversold markets have reached a bottom as well as USD weakness and expectations that the aggressive rate hikes may show some moderation.