Shares on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM) showed a weak trend at the end of September 2019, with the MSM 30 Index falling by 11.6% to close at 4,017.7 points from 4,543.7 points for the same period of 2018.
Among different sub-sectors, manufacturing sub-index plunged by 20.4% to 4,405 points in September 2019, compared to 5,535 points for the same period of last year, according to the latest monthly statistics released by the NCSI.
The financial services sub-index fell by 6.8% to 6,558 points in September 2019 from 7,033 points in the same month of 2018. Similarly, services sub-sector index fell 20.9% to 1,951 points in 2019 compared to 2,466 points in 2018, the NCSI data show.
Further, the market turnover at MSM fell 13% to OMR545 million in the first nine months of 2019, from OMR626.3 million for the same period of 2018.
In addition, the net purchase of Omani investors on the Muscat bourse was at OMR14.2 million in September 2019, the NCSI report showed.
However, there was a drop in the net sellers of GCC and Arab investors reaching OMR16.5 million and OMR65,000, respectively, at the end of September 2019. Other foreign investors were also net purchase to the extent of OMR2.41 million worth of shares in September 2019, net seller against OMR79.4 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 10.7%, reaching 2.91 billion in September 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.