Market turnover touches last six months high on MSM

Muscat: Traded volumes on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM) touched a record in the last six months in November at OMR79.8 million. This was the highest volume for the last six months since June 2016.
The market turnover in May stood at OMR104.2 million, but fell to OMR66.3 million in June, OMR61 million in July and OMR62.7 million in August. The market registered the lowest volume of trading in September 2016 at OMR54.4 million, which went upwards to OMR77.5 million in October 2016.
The MSM performance in November 2016 has been mixed due to oil price drop. Nevertheless, the Opec agreement on November 30 to reduce production augmented the trading volume and led many stock upwards. MSM 30 Index ended with slight gains in November; 6 points after three months of decline to close at 5,487 points.
The index is still high by 80 points compared to its level last year, which closed at 5406, thanks to the gains achieved in February, March, April and July at which the index gained 830 points. The index lost most of these gains due to the continuous oil price slump and lowering the global economy expected rates of growth. It is also attributed to the expected effects of oil price drop on the state's general budget, which recorded a deficit of OMR4.4 billion at the end of September 2016 that was covered by loans and finances through reserves.
The financial sector index has recorded the best upward movement to close at 7202 points; high by 105 points. The industry sector index gained 95 points compared to 3 points only for the Sharia market index. The service index closed on decline by 36 points.
The share price of 33 stocks increased compared to 28 stocks, which declined and 19 stocks remained unchanged. Takaful Oman Insurance share has been the best gainer to close at 181 baises (13.1 per cent). The share of Sharqiah Investment Holding share increased by 11.3 per cent to close at 128 baises.Al Jazeera Services share increased by 9.3 per cent to close at 187 baises. Al Anwar Ceramics rose by 9.1 per cent to close at 167 baises.
The top loser was Ooredoo, which closed at 612 baises, a decline of 5.5 per cent. Sembcorp Salalah share dropped by 4.8 per cent to close at 234 baises. United Power share fell by 4.2 per cent to close at 234 baises and Galfar Engineering and Contracting declined by 4.2 per cent to close at 90 baises.
Ominvest topped the list of the highest in terms of the volume of trading with OMR16.6 million, which represents 20.9 per cent of the total value of trading. Oman Telecommunications Company came second with OMR11.1 million or 14 per cent of the total value of trading. Al Fajr International came third with OMR7 million or 8.7 per cent of the total trading volume.