Wednesday 30 / October / 2024
Muscat: Foreign selling pressured the MSM30 Index, which ended at 5,477.70 points, down by 0.07 per cent. The MSM Sharia Index remained unchanged at 841.07 points. Ooredoo was the most active in terms of volume as well as turnover. The top gainer was Al Izz Bank, up by 3.17 per cent, while Gulf Investment Services was the top loser, down by 2.80 per cent.
As many as 347 trades were executed on Tuesday, generating a turnover of OMR2.32 million with 8.21 million shares changing hands. Out of 42 traded securities, seven advanced, 13 declined and 22 remained unchanged. Omani investors stayed net buyers for OMR533,000 followed by GCC and Arab investors for OMR121,000 while foreign investors continued to be net sellers for OMR654,000 worth of shares.
Financial Index retreated 0.09 per cent to close at 7,090.57 points. Al Izz Bank and HSBC Bank gained 3.17 per cent and 0.89 per cent, respectively. Gulf Investment Services, Al Madina Investment, Taageer Finance, Al Sharqia Investment and Oman United Insurance declined by 2.80 per cent, 1.85 per cent, 1.82 per cent, 0.87 per cent and 0.69 per cent, respectively.
Industrial Index remained flat at 7,087.90 points. Al Maha Ceramics and Raysut Cement gained 0.41 per cent and 0.33 per cent, respectively. Oman Fisheries, Galfar Engineering and Oman Chlorine declined by 1.69 per cent, 1.06 per cent and 0.80 per cent, respectively.
Services Index ended negatively at 3,022.68 points, down by 0.16 per cent. Port Services, Oman Telecommunications Company and Al Suwadi Power increased by 2.16 per cent, 0.68 per cent and 0.53 per cent, respectively. Ooredoo Oman, Phoenix Power and Sembcorp Salalah declined by 1.85 per cent, 0.71 per cent and 0.41 per cent, respectively.
StanChart shares fall
Standard Chartered shares plunged the most since June after third-quarter profit missed analyst estimates on a drop in revenue at all four of its divisions, and executives said the economic environment remains challenging.
Shares fell as much as 7.2 per cent in London trading. Adjusted pretax profit was $458 million, compared with a loss of $139 million a year earlier, the London-based lender said in a statement on Tuesday. That missed the $520 million average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters is looking to show he’s stemmed the bank’s losses and is on the way to restoring the dividend, after a sharp drop in revenue and surging loan impairments last year drove the Asia-focused lender to its first annual loss since 1989. In August, the bank said it would probably miss a future profitability target set only last year because of an uncertain regulatory and economic environment.
The result “shows that things are still tough in the operating environment and the overall economy remains fragile,” said Hugh Young, Asia managing director of Aberdeen Asset Management, Standard Chartered’s third-largest shareholder. “He and team are definitely on the right track, but my goodness it ain’t easy.”
Revenue slipped 5.9 per cent to $3.47 billion. Corporate and institutional banking, its largest division, posted a 7.5 per cent drop in revenue, while retail banking fell 1.1 per cent.
Statutory pretax profit, which included $141 million of restructuring costs, fell 64 per cent to $153 million in the third quarter. Operating expenses declined 4.5 per cent from a year earlier to $2.39 billion, and the company said it remained on track to deliver more than $1 billion in cost cuts this year.
Losses on bad loans and other investments fell by more than half to $660 million in the quarter, according to the filing. That was more than the $612 million analysts had estimated. In 2015, impairments surged to a record $4 billion when the commodity market crashed and growth stalled from China to India.
