Thursday 29/01/2009:

After a brief uptrend, valuation in the Muscat Securities Market continued to decline further for the second consecutive day. The MSM-30 Index lost 74.68 points to close 1.53% lower at 4,813.51 level as compared to the previous close of 4,888.19 level. Among the sector indices, the Industry Sector Index lost 66.43 points and closed 1.83% lower at 3,554.94 level, while the Banks & Investment Sector Index lost 97.24 points to close 1.7% lower at 5,635.89 level, followed by the Service & Insurance Sector Index which lost 37.98 points to close 1.58% lower at 2,364.57 level. The total market trading volume also declined to 10.6 million traded shares, while the market turnover declined to RO 3.53 million. However, trading in bonds added another RO 10.44 million to the turnover in the market. A total of 43 securities were traded with an advance-decline ratio of 8:25.

In the Banks & Investment Sector, the losers were ONIC Holding (-9.96%), Muscat Finance (-9.85%), Gulf Investment Services (-9.71%), OIFC (-7.94%), Financial Services (-7.92%), United Finance (-5.14%), Bank Sohar (-3.54%), Bank Muscat (-2.04%), Transgulf Investment (-1.61%) and NBO (-1.39%).

In the Industry Sector, the gainers were Construction Materials (3.45%), Al Jazeera Steel (2.52%) and Al Hassan Engineering (0.88%), while the losers were National Aluminum (-6.1%), Raysut Cement (-5.67%), Oman Cables Industry (-3.77%), Al Anwar Ceramics Tiles (-1.65%) and Oman Cement (-0.99%).

In the Service & Insurance Sector, the losers were Dhofar Insurance (-9.88%) and Galfar Engineering (-0.74%), while the only gainer was Oman Tel (0.06%).

Galfar Engineering was the most active share with 2 million traded shares and a turnover of RO 1.1 million.