Tuesday 26 / November / 2024
Muscat: The Oman stock market declined for the second consecutive month during October-2020, in line with most of the other equity markets in the GCC, Kamco Invest said in its latest report.
The MSM 30 index reached 3,557.77 points by the end of the month, recording a decline of 1.6 per cent, following a general downward trend throughout the month, the Kuwait-based investment strategy and research firm said in its GCC Monthly Market report.
The decline MSM index came after the 2.93 per cent month-on-month (m-o-m) gain in the services index and 1.23 per cent gain in the Industrial index were more than offset by a decline of 3.63 per cent in the financials Index during the month.
The decline in the financial index resulted from a broad-based decline in the sector with none of the stocks showing gains during the month whereas stock performance in the industrial and services sectors were mixed. In terms of year-to-date 2020 performance, the MSM 30 index now shows a decline of 10.6 per cent, Kamco said in its report.
The Services index has witnessed the steepest decline since the start of the year at 15.1 per cent whereas the Financials and Industrials indices reported a decline of 11.5 per cent and 4.9 per cent, respectively.
The monthly market breadth was slightly skewed towards declines that included 37 stocks as compared to 20 gainers.
GCC markets
GCC equity markets declined for the first time in seven months as the number of COVID-19 cases once again surged globally leading to lockdowns in several cities in the absence of a successful vaccine, Kamco report said.
GCC Index closed at a 10-week low level by the end of October-2020 to report a monthly decline of 2.1 per cent.
Abu Dhabi was the only market in the region that showed a noticeable gain of 3.1 per cent during the month.
In addition, the sentiments of GCC investors, who had defied growth in COVID-19 numbers during the previous months, was also affected by the initial cues from the third quarter 2020 earnings.
Trading trends during the month clearly showed a second-half weakness as companies started reporting the third quarter 2020 numbers.
In terms of year-to-date 2020 returns, the decline during October-2020 once again pushed all the GCC equity markets back in the red with Dubai Financial Market (DFM) showing the biggest drop of 20.9 per cent while Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) showed the smallest decline of 5.7 per cent.
The sector performance also showed a broad-based decline, as only defensive sectors showed gains during the month while the rest of the sectoral indices were in the red.
The GCC Utilities index showed the biggest monthly gain of 4.6 per cent followed by Food & Drug Retailing and Telecom indices with monthly returns of 1.2 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively.
On the other hand, declines were topped by Consumer Durables index that posted a decline of 16.4 per cent followed by Pharma & Biotech and Hotel and Restaurants indices with declines of 10.6 per cent and 8.7 per cent, respectively.
On the global front, the MSCI World Index posted a decline of 3.1 per cent during the month and, as a consequence, was back in the red in terms of year-to-date 2020 performance with a decline of 2.8 per cent. Almost all the key global indices closed the month with a decline with European Markets posting the biggest decline of 5.3 per cent.
