Tuesday 06 / May / 2025
Muscat: Telecom sector continued to weigh on the MSM30 Index which closed at 5,700.21 points, down 0.77 per cent. The MSM Sharia Index declined 0.73 per cent to end at 858.83 points. Bank Nizwa was the most active in terms of volume and Ooredoo led in terms of turnover. Up 2.78 per cent, Al Madina Takaful was the top gainer, while HSBC Bank was the top loser, down 3.20 per cent.
A total number of 595 trades were executed on Monday, generating turnover of OMR2.36 million with 8.49 million shares changing hands. Out of 39 traded securities, 8 advanced, 11 declined and 20 remained unchanged. At the session close, Omani investors were net buyers for OMR176,000 while GCC & Arab investors remained net sellers for OMR145,000 followed by Foreign Investors for OMR31,000 worth of shares.
Financial Index ended positively at 7,751.35 points, up 0.16 per cent. Al Madina Takaful, Ahli Bank, Al Madina Investments, Bank Nizwa and Gulf Investment Services gained 2.78 per cent, 2.63 per cent, 1.72 per cent, 1.14 per cent and 0.88 per cent respectively. HSBC Bank, Muscat Finance, Oman & Emirates, Takaful Oman and NBO slid 3.20 per cent, 0.80 per cent, 0.75 per cent, 0.57 per cent and 0.42 per cent respectively.
Industrial Index closed at 7,413.36 points with marginal loss of 0.05 per cent. Oman Fisheries, Galfar Engineering and Oman Cement increased 1.61 per cent, 1.06 per cent and 0.84 per cent respectively. Raysut Cement and Al Jazeera Steel 2.03 per cent and 0.41 per cent decreased respectively.
Services Index had strong loss of 0.87 per cent to end at 3,003.15 points. Omantel, Ooredoo and Phoenix Power lost 2.07 per cent, 1.96 per cent and 0.67 per cent respectively.
Dollar recovers
The dollar recovered from a two-week low against a basket of six major currencies on Monday, though trade was thin with many markets closed for the New Year holiday.
The greenback had soared to 14-year highs in December, boosted by market expectations that the US Federal Reserve will hike rates as many as three times this year, and that President-elect Donald Trump will stoke growth and inflation with a programme of fiscal expansion.
The dollar finished the year with an almost 4 per cent annual rise, the fourth consecutive year of gains
But the index that measures the currency against six major rivals lost more than 1 per cent during the last three days of last week, its weakness exacerbated on Friday during a flash surge for the euro in low volumes of trading in Asia.
The single currency jumped two full cents to as high as $1.07, before quickly retreating, prompting analysts to draw parallels with a "flash crash" in October that briefly knocked almost 10 percent off the value of Britain's pound.
On Monday the euro fell 0.4 per cent to $1.0513 despite strong manufacturing data for the currency bloc, while the dollar index climbed half a per cent to 102.68, close to the 14-year peak of 103.65 it touched on Dec. 30.
"In the last days of 2016 we saw the dollar retreat somewhat, and there might be some sense of a correction from Europe this morning. I don't see any fundamental drivers for the moves," said Commerzbank currency strategist Esther Reichelt in Frankfurt.
Data released on Friday showed speculators once again taking a bullish stance on the dollar, increasing their bets in the week up to last Tuesday after cutting their long positions for the first time since October in the previous week.
The Swedish crown rose half a per cent to a 3-1/2-month high of 9.5285 crowns per euro after the purchasing managers' index for the manufacturing sector rose to 60.1 points in December, up from 57.3 the previous month.
The main data focus for the week will be Friday's U.S. non-farm payrolls report.
"This week's NFP figure is likely to confirm (the) assumption ... that if the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) hopes to get at least two hikes in during the year, one of them should be out of the way by the middle of the year," wrote FXPrimus's head of investment research, Marshall Gittler.
"The market is unfortunately getting increasingly used to such events — it barely reacts to them anymore," said Commerzbank's Reichelt. "When we had that attack in Berlin recently, there was barely any move — the euro moved a few pips.
