Shares on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM) showed a weak trend at the end of November 2019, with the MSM 30 Index falling by 7.9% to close at 4,064.1 points from 4,412.1 points for the same period of 2018.
Among different sub-sectors, manufacturing sub-index plunged by 14% to 4,521 points in November 2019, compared to 5,254 points for the same period of last year, according to the latest monthly statistics released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI). The financial services sub-index fell by 6.7% to 6,427 points in November 2019 from 6,890 points in the same month of 2018. Similarly, services sub-sector index fell 16.9% to 1,955 points in 2019 compared to 2,354 points in 2018, the NCSI data show. Further, the market turnover at MSM fell 9.7% to OMR632.3 million in the first 11 months of 2019, from OMR700.4 million for the same period of 2018. In addition, the net purchase of Omani investors on the Muscat bourse was at OMR15.3 million at the end of November 2019, the NCSI report showed. However, there was a drop in the net purchase of GCC and Arab investors reaching OMR15.9 million and OMR456,000, respectively, at the end of November 2019. Other foreign investors were also net purchase to the extent of OMR1.14 million worth of shares at the end of November 2019, against OMR77.2 million for the same period of the previous year. The data also showed that there was a fall in total number of shares traded on the local bourse by 5.9%, reaching 3.542 billion at the end of November 2019.
In 2018, the Muscat bourse closed with the MSM 30 Index ending at 4,323.7 points, while the market turnover stood at OMR762.71 million.