Friday 18 / October / 2024
Muscat: The Oman stock market witnessed gains for the fourth consecutive month during June-2021 and was the best performing market in the GCC, according to a new report.
“The Muscat Securities Exchange (MSX) during the month of June ended with a gain of 5.5 per cent with the index touching a 14-month high level by mid-month at 4,077.87 points but receded marginally during the second half of the month to close slightly lower at 4,063.4 points,” the Kuwait-based investment, strategy and research firm Kamco Invest said.
Gains for the MSX Total Return index were similar at 5.5 per cent, whereas the MSX Sharia index reported slightly higher gains of 7.03 per cent during June-2021, Kamco Invest said in its monthly report on GCC stock markets.
In terms of sector performance, all three sectoral indices closed the month in the green with the Industry index reporting the biggest gains of 8.7 per cent followed by Financial and Services indices with monthly gains of 8.1 per cent and 6.1 per cent, respectively.
Gains during June-2021 pushed the first half of 2021 gains into double digits for the MSX 30 index at 11.1 per cent. The Industrial index was up 40.4 per cent in the first half of 2021 followed by Financial and Services indices with gains of 14.4 per cent and 8.2 per cent, respectively, the research firm said.
Galfar Engineering topped the monthly gainers' chart with its shares up 72.9 per cent followed by Oman Qatar Insurance and Oman & Emirates Investment Holding with gains of 70.4 per cent and 47.1 per cent, respectively.
On the decliner’s side, Oman Chlorine topped with a fall of 15.5 per cent followed by Dhofar Generating Co. and Dhofar International with declines of 12.7 per cent and 10.5 per cent, respectively.
The monthly market breadth strongly favoured gainers that included 53 stocks as compared to 18 decliners.
Trading activity remained upbeat during the month reaching multi-year highs. The total volume of shares traded during the month reached the highest in 37 months at 667.3 million shares as compared to 315.3 million shares traded during May-2021.
The monthly value traded was also at a 21-month high after reaching OMR90.7 million in June-2021 as compared to OMR50.3 million in May-2021.
Bank Nizwa topped in terms of monthly volumes with 92.5 million traded shares followed by United Finance and Al Anwar Investment with 86.1 million shares and 60.2 million traded shares, respectively.
In terms of value traded, Bank Muscat topped with OMR11.2 million worth of shares changing hands during the month followed by Bank Nizwa and Al Anwar Investment at OMR 8.9 million and OMR6.3 million, respectively.
The share of Omanis in the monthly trading activity witnessed a steep decline from last month. Omanis accounted for 64.5 per cent of the total value of buy trades during June-2021 as compared to 85.4 per cent in May-2021.
In terms of the value of sell trades, Omani’s share increased to 83.4 per cent in June-2021 from 82.1 per cent in May-2021, indicating net sellers during the month.
On the economic front, the government recently hired banks for its second international bond sale this year. According to the document, the Sultanate issued $1.75 billion in a 9-year USD denominated Sukuk to support its budgeted expenditure. Total issuance this year stood at around $7.2 billion amid a non-investment grade rating for the country.
The prospectus for the Sukuk showed that Oman forecasts a deficit of OMR2.23 billion this year or 8.6 per cent of GDP.
Deficits are expected to decline to OMR1.66 billion in 2022 or 5.9 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and further lower to OMR605 million and OMR165 million in 2023 and 2024, respectively, resulting in a deficit of 2.0 per cent and 0.5 per cent of GDP.
GCC markets
Equity markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) were up for the eighth consecutive month during June-2021, in a rally that started in November-2020.
Gains were broad-based with only the Qatari index reporting a marginal decline of 0.2 per cent during the month, whereas the rest of the GCC markets reported low to mid-single-digit gains.
As a result, the MSCI GCC total return index recorded the best first-half performance since the index started tracking regional markets in 2005 with a return of 25.0 per cent during the first half of 2021.
Abu Dhabi continued to lead with the highest returns in the region as well as globally at 35.5 per cent followed by Saudi Arabia with a gain of 26.4 per cent.
All the markets in the GCC were in the green this year with a majority of the indices reporting double-digit gains.
