Muscat Securities Market - Update

I thought I'd analyze my own market right here in Oman for a change, looking at the MSM (Muscat Securities Market), its clear that that the market is basing. The Arab spring had a strong impact on equities here in Oman, with the market yet to recover from the destabilizing blow. The near absence of IPO's has also taken its toll on the markets as old names struggled to impress.

Looking at the MSM chart, the MSM had a gold cross with the market re-testing the 50 SMA at 5700 and holding backing March. The gold cross still remains in play, however, as I indicated here fear isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I don't expect the MSM to hold the 200 SMA but I do expect it hold above support at the yellow shaded area. This push lower should be a buying opportunity on fundamentally sound stocks. Timing is everything in this game.

Looking at stocks, only one company caught my eye, AACT (Al Anwar Ceramic). Technically, this stock is perfect, it demonstrated relative strength in comparison to the MSM and held its ground by not following the market down. It also formed a beautiful head & shoulders pattern.The stock is also above its 200 and 50 SMA's.  Fundamentally, this stock is sound with its current assets double its current liabilities. It almost has no debt and it has a high gross margin. EPS has grown over last year with its P/E being its only dent at 46 times earnings. R.O 370 is the level to watch here, a breakout could see this stock go.


This isn't an invitation to buy or sell, its just my insight into the current situation on equities here in Oman. Information on stocks is very scarce here and unless you have bloomberg, everything has to be done manually though raw data. I would have loved to conduct quantitative studies on the stock but obtaining the data need was impossible. Other stocks worth looking at are OCOI (Oman Cement) and Al Saffa chicken which is up almost 500% since its IPO in 2010. My only issue with Al Saffa is its illiquidity.

To conclude this post, the MSM is still a difficult place to invest. Its nature makes it very volatile, Ill leave the reasons to another day.