Muscat bourse gains lifted by activity in financial shares

Business Wednesday 04/April/2018 17:50 PM
By: Times News Service
Muscat bourse gains lifted by activity in financial shares

Muscat: Buying activity in financials lifted the MSM30 Index to 4,794.61 points, up 0.41 per cent. The MSM Sharia Index closed at 676.52 points, down 0.08 per cent. Gulf Investment Services was the most active in terms of volume while Bank Muscat was the leader in terms of turnover. The top gainer was Oman & Emirates Holding, up 4.07 per cent while the top loser was Oman Oil Marketing, with a loss of 9.93 per cent.
A total number of 1,041 trades were executed on Wednesday, generating turnover of OMR4.98 million with 29.08 million shares changing hands. Out of 46 traded securities, 15 advanced, 11 declined and 20 remained unchanged. At the session close, Omani investors switched to net buyers for OMR900,000 while GCC & Arab investors were net sellers for OMR613,000 followed by Foreign investors for OMR287,000 worth of shares.
Financial Index continued its uptrend to close at 7,273.86 points, up 0.52 per cent. Oman & Emirates Holding, HSBC Bank Oman, United Finance, Bank Sohar and Al Madina Takaful gained 4.07 per cent, 1.96 per cent, 1.83 per cent, 1.42 per cent and 1.09 per cent respectively. Global Financial Investment, Al Sharqia Investments and Al Anwar Holding declined 7.08 per cent, 2.33 per cent and 0.62 per cent respectively.
Industrial Index gained 0.23 per cent to end at 6,626.74 points. Construction Materials, Galfar Engineering, Oman Flour Mills and Al Anwar Ceramics gained 3.57 per cent, 1.87 per cent, 1.18 per cent and 0.80 per cent respectively. A’Saffa Foods, Oman Fisheries and Raysut Cement lost 5.70 per cent, 0.78 per cent and 0.55 per cent respectively.
Services Index retreated 0.53 per cent to finish at 2,623.48 points. Renaissance Services and Ooredoo gained 0.51 per cent and 0.40 per cent respectively. Oman Oil Marketing, Al Maha Petroleum, National Gas, Al Jazeera Services and Omantel declined 9.93 per cent, 6.58 per cent, 2.43 per cent, 1.06 per cent and 0.45 per cent respectively.