Muscat Securities Market registered a total trading value of OMR243.707 million at the end of May 2019, declining by 46.9% compared to the end of May 2018, when it was OMR458.873, while the general index declined by 14.6%, according to a preliminary statistics data issued recently by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
MSM total trading value during the month of May2019 recorded OMR50.052 million, which is considered higher than the previous month, with OMR42.494 million in April and OMR45.679 million in March. The general index of MSM was 3,934.2 points at the end of May 2019 compared to 4,606.7 points at the end of May 2018. NCSI preliminary statistics data also show that the industrial sector has led the decline process, reaching 24.8% to 4,620 points at the end of May 2019, compared to 6,145 points at the end of May 2018. The financial sector recorded a decline of 11.7% to reach 6,343 points at the end of May 2019 compared to 7,184 points at the end of May 2018, while the services sector decreased by 20.2% to reach 1,975 points by the end of May 2019 compared to 2,476 points by the end of May 2018. The same data revealed that the total number of traded shares decreased by 40.8% to reach 1.4 billion shares at the end of May 2019, compared to 2.4 billion shares at the end of May 2018.
Omani investors had acquired 83% of the purchase price till the end of May 2019, against 8% for foreign investors, 8% for Gulf nationals, and 1% for Arabs from non-GCC countries. According to NCSI statistics data, the net selling process by the Omani investors was higher than their net buying process, recording a loss in their net trade by OMR363,000, as well as Gulf investors, who recorded a loss in their net trade by OMR3.05 million, and the Arab investors who recorded a loss of OMR34,000 in their net trade, while the buying process by the foreign investors recorded a net profit of OMR3.452 million, which is considered higher than the selling process.
The financial sector acquired 47% of the value of the traded shares, while the services sector acquired 22%, the industrial sector acquired 21% and the bond sector had acquired 10 of the value of the traded shares in the same period.