MSX rises in weekly trading after three weeks of decline

Muscat: After three weeks of decline Oman's benchmark Muscat Stock Exchange (MSX) resumed its rising trend last week and ended Thursday's trading session recording a weekly rise of 49 points at 4,768 points. This rise came with the support of banks and several industrial and financial companies.

The increase included most of the listed sectors with the industry sector index recording the highest rise up 90 points, the financial sector index up by 71 points and the Sharia index up by one point. While the services sector index was unable to maintain the gains it recorded in the previous three weeks and ended the week’s trading and closed at 1,681 points, down by 7 points.

The market capitalisation of the securities listed on the stock exchange rose at the end of last week to OMR23.61 billion, recording weekly gains of OMR40.2 million.

The past week witnessed a clear outperformance of the winning stocks over the losers, with the prices of 31 securities rising compared to 19 securities whose prices fell, and 22 securities stabilising at their previous levels. However, the stock gains were not reflected in the trading value, which declined last week to OMR7.4 million, compared to OMR12.2. million in the preceding week, recording a decrease of 39 per cent. The number of executed deals decreased from 1,970 to 1,555 deals during the last week.

Trading focused on the shares of Omantel, Julphar Engineering and Contracting, and Bank Muscat, which collectively accounted for more than 60 per cent of the total trading value. Omantel’s share witnessed transactions worth OMR2.46 million, representing 33 per cent of the total trading value. Julphar’s share witnessed transactions worth OMR1.18 million and Bank Muscat witnessed transactions worth OMR996,000, representing 13.3 per cent of the total trading value.

The share of Omani Education and Training Investments recorded the highest rise, up by 20 per cent and closing at 240 baisas, the share of Oman Chrome rose by 10 per cent and closed at OMR2.640 while the share of Dhofar Food and Investment rose by 9.5 per cent and closed at 69 baisas.

Gulf International Chemicals was at the forefront of the losers, down by 7.5 per cent and closed at 74 baisas. Shell Oman Marketing share declined by 5.9 per cent and closed at 820 baisas while A’Saffa Foods fell to 190 baisas, down by 5 per cent.