Nothing seems to have a effect on the sluggish Casablanca stock market — neither the discovery of oil in the Talsint region, nor the recent governmental changes have positively affected the Moroccan market.
It seems the country's economy is somewhat untouched by global events, news or discoveries, as the decline trend is steady, and even the optimistic first quarter results of the publicly traded companies have passed over the stock market.
The market continued to demonstrate a selling trend on Monday, September 11, thus registering new losses. The market closed with a 3.5 points’ loss and a total volume of 30 million Moroccan dirhams (MDh).
The General index closed at 727.39 points — a registered loss of 0.48 percent — indicating an accumulated loss of 6.4 percent since the beginning of the year.
BNDE and the iron and steel company, Nador, both experienced high price drops — the former losing 3.79 percent and the latter 2.21 percent. The holding companies ONA and SNI were also affected by the poor market performance, as well as the oil refinery, which lost four points, closing at 706 MDh.
The continuous underperformance of the stock market negatively affects some of Morocco's most profitable and solid stocks. In the banking sector, BMCI was the sole stock to gain four points — where the others experienced losses. BMCE and Wafabank closed the session with a loss of 1.09 percent and 0.72 percent respectively.
Two shares slightly on the rise were Auto Nejma and Consumar, although trade volume was kept very low.
Stock exchange revival is most likely to take place following the arrival of a strong political signal, noting however that recovery is usually more difficult after the summer holidays. — (Albawaba-MEBG)
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
