Stock Market: MASI Records Fourth Consecutive Month of Growth in August

The 20,000-point milestone, which seemed elusive just a few months ago, has now been reached. The MASI index surpassed this symbolic threshold last week, before testing it again at the end of the week, all on strong trading volumes. As a result, the index posted a monthly performance of 2.14%, marking its fourth consecutive month of growth. Since the beginning of the year, only April has shown negative performance, attributed to the tariff episode under Donald Trump. The main catalyst over the past two weeks has been the quarterly earnings season. Investor expectations were high, as the summer rally had pushed some valuations to sensitive levels. In this context, any perceived modest revenue growth or cautious management commentary was enough to trigger significant corrections in stocks considered overvalued. In August, the best-performing sectors included engineering and industrial goods, which rose by 13.46%, leisure and hotels, up 8.29%, and real estate, gaining 7.35%. Conversely, the chemical, electricity, and mining sectors experienced the largest declines, with respective drops of 5.51%, 2.20%, and 1.59%. Trading volumes exceeded 11.6 billion dirhams, with 9.3 billion on the central market, 801.4 million dirhams on the block market, 31.26 million dirhams in transfers, and over 1.47 billion dirhams in capital increases, primarily driven by the TGCC operation. TGCC was the most traded stock of the month, accounting for 14.09% of the volumes, followed by Attijariwafa Bank at 7.21% and Marsa Maroc at 6.02%. The market capitalization surpassed 1,055.6 billion dirhams, led by Attijariwafa Bank, which represents 15.92%, followed by Itissalat Al-Maghrib at 10.32% and Marsa Maroc at 6.76%. Among individual stocks, the largest gains were seen in Colorado, which surged 45.9% to 89 dirhams, Stokvis Nord Afrique, up 44.37% to 109 dirhams, Ennakl, gaining 25.14% to 43.7 dirhams, Disty Technologies, appreciating 23.88% to 408.8 dirhams, and S2M, advancing 23.39% to 765 dirhams. On the other hand, SMI fell 10.61% to 2,520 dirhams, Maghrebail lost 7.12% to 900 dirhams, SNEP declined 6.15% to 656 dirhams, Zellidja dropped 5.62% to 245.05 dirhams, and Bank of Africa decreased 5.17% to 251.5 dirhams. From a technical perspective, the trend remains bullish with support identified at 19,600 points. A Fibonacci extension at 20,300 points currently serves as the main resistance.