Muscat: Foreign investors, including institutional and retail investors, were net buyers on GCC stock markets during Q3-2024 with net buying at $3.71 billion as compared to $3.66 billion in net buying during Q2-2024, according to a new report.

“The trend remained positive from the start of the year with consecutive buying by foreign investors during the first nine months of 2024 ,” the Kuwait-based Kamco Invest said in its GCC Trading Activity Quarterly Report - Q3-2024.

The biggest buying was seen in Abu Dhabi with total net buying of $1.9 billion followed by Saudi Arabia also seeing consecutive buying by foreigners that reached $1.3 billion in Q3-2024. Boursa Kuwait was next with the exchange also witnessing consecutive buying by foreigners during the three months of the quarter aggregating to $220.4 million followed by Dubai, Qatar and Bahrain exchanges with net buy transactions of $68.6 million, $68.3 million and $46.3 million, respectively. The net buying seen in Bahrain during Q3-2024 was the highest level recorded in 21 quarters. Data for Oman showed a marginal net buying at $0.3 million for Q3-2024.

Meanwhile, the monthly trend for Saudi Arabia showed that the quarter started with net sell transactions by foreign investors during July-2024 followed by net buy trades during the remaining two months, more than offsetting the net sell trades during July-2024. Similarly, Qatar experienced net sales by foreign investors in Aug-2024 that was offset by buying during the remaining two months.

Some of the key factors that affected the flow of foreign money in the region included regional market trends, IPOs, geopolitical issues, economic health of the individual countries and crude oil prices. The quarter saw an uptrend in the equity market and skewed towards gainers as two out of seven exchanges reported declines during Q3-2024. The anticipated reduction in interest rate by the US Fed during the quarter supported market performance in the region. As a result, local investors were net sellers during the quarter and these shares were grabbed by foreign investors resulting in broad-based net buy trades by the latter.

In terms of m-o-m performance, net buying value by foreign investors during the quarter peaked during Sep-2024 with aggregate monthly net buying at $2.6 billion. July-2024 witnessed a decline with net buying at $307.1 million while Aug-2024 registered the net buying at $718.9 million.

Historical trends for trading by foreigners in GCC listed stocks showed declines merely in two quarters over the last five years. Foreigners bought the most stocks during Q1-2022 with net buy transactions of $11.0 billion, reflecting a steep increase in buying mainly in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Trading by GCC investors (Excluding Abu Dhabi, Bahrain due to unavailability of data) in GCC exchanges showed net selling during Q3-2024. Net sale trades of GCC investors reached $195.1 million in Q3-2024 compared to a net buy trade of $649.5 million in Q2-2024. Saudi Exchange witnessed the biggest net buying by GCC investors during Q3-2024 at $21.4 million.

Oman was next with the exchange also witnessing consecutive buying during Q3-2024 with $6.2 million. On the other hand,Kuwait, Dubai and Qatar exchanges recorded net sales by GCC investors in Q3-2024 partially offsetting the overall buying by GCC investors. In terms of monthly trend during Q3-2024, aggregate trading activity by GCC Investors on GCC exchanges peaked during July-2024 and hit the lowest trading month in Aug -2024.

In terms of the aggregate trading activity, total GCC volume traded increased by 19.8 percent quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) to reach 83.01 billion shares in Q3-2024 as compared to 69.3 billion shares in Q2-2024. All the GCC Exchanges reported a q-o-q increase in volume during the quarter barring Qatar and Oman. Kuwait topped the list with a gain of 32.7 percent to record 16.8 billion in Q3-2024 compared to 12.7 billion in Q2-2024, followed by Saudi Arabia with 28.1 percent to record 22.3 billion in Q3-2024 against 17.4 billion in Q2-2024. On the other hand, Qatar and Oman declined by 1.6 percent and 8.9 percent in Q3-2024, respectively.

Similarly, the total value of shares traded during Q3-2024 also reported a gain that was largely broad-based. Value traded in Qatar declined while the rest of the markets gained during Q3-2024.

Aggregate value traded reached $165.9 billion in Q3-2024 against $158 billion in Q2-2024. Abu Dhabi reported the biggest increase in trading activity with value traded increasing from $16 billion in Q2-2024 to $21.4 billion in Q3-2024 resulting in a share of 12.9 percent against 10.1 percent in Q2-2024. Trading activity on the Qatar Exchange declined q-o-q from $7.7 billion in Q2-2024 to $6.5 billion in Q3-2024.

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