In the span of just a few sessions, SGTM has established itself as the epicenter of the Casablanca Stock Exchange. Record volumes, strained order books, platforms pushed to their limits, and unusual volatility: rarely has a stock attracted so much attention since its listing.
A magnet for liquidity
From its first day of trading on December 16, demand set the tone: 171 billion dirhams for an offering of 4.8 billion, meaning an oversubscription of more than 35 times. The stock, which quickly crossed the 900-dirham threshold, absorbed a significant share of available liquidity, accelerating the adjustments implied by the rapid arrival of a large-cap company in a market still deepening its structure.
This sequence comes in an especially favorable stock market environment. Just hours before the close of the last session of the year, the MASI is hovering around 18,800 points, up more than 27% for all of 2025, while the MASI 20 is up more than 24%. These performances reflect a strong return of appetite for equities and place Casablanca’s exchange at the center of investment strategies.
In this context, SGTM quickly shifted scale. With a market capitalization exceeding 54 billion dirhams and triple-digit performance since its listing, the stock immediately positioned itself among the heavyweights of the market. A trajectory that does not stem from mere speculative enthusiasm, but from a leap in scale within a market historically accustomed to absorbing more gradual listings.
A tense Friday
This rapid rise in prominence has not been without effects on the functioning of the market. The session of Friday, December 26, crystallized the tensions. The massive influx of orders concentrated on SGTM pushed activity to levels rarely seen on the exchange. On its own, the stock recorded more than 7,000 contracts traded in a single session, out of a total close to 27,000 contracts for the entire market, while overall traded volumes nearly reached 4.4 billion dirhams.
This exceptional concentration of trades put pressure on order books and on the technical capacities of certain trading platforms. On the ground, order execution proved more complex than usual, fueling unusual intraday nervousness. “It is not so much the volume itself that is problematic as its concentration on a single stock, and over a very short period of time. When one stock absorbs such a large share of flows, the rest of the market tightens mechanically,” explains a trader active on the exchange.
According to him, the episode above all reflects the collision between exceptional momentum and a market still adapting to this type of shock. The sudden arrival of a large capitalization, traded massively over only a few sessions, thus acts as a full-scale test for the entire ecosystem: brokerage firms, technical infrastructures, and price-formation mechanisms.
An anomaly?
In this climate of volatility and unusual volumes, market chatter circulated, with some suggesting a session “driven” by year-end adjustment logic, in a context of strong concentration of flows on a single stock. The idea put forward by certain observers is that SGTM, heavily traded and in high demand, may have been used preferentially at a time when portfolios were being rebalanced.
In other words, SGTM, very actively traded and highly sought after, may have been used by some funds as a transit stock, facilitating the final adjustments at year-end and, as a result, concentrating a large share of trades on the stock.
A reading that other professionals interviewed nevertheless urge people to put into perspective. “As soon as a stock concentrates so many trades over such a short period of time, interpretations multiply. This does not imply an anomaly, let alone a malfunction,” emphasizes another market professional.
SGTM, but not only
For Farid Mezouar, financial markets expert and director of FL Markets, the momentum observed around SGTM is explained first by the company’s own profile. “SGTM has a solid order book and is on the verge of winning the contract for the new terminal at Casablanca’s Mohammed V Airport, a multibillion-dirham project,” he emphasizes. This positioning makes it, in his view, a naturally attractive stock for investors.
The expert, however, places this trajectory within a broader movement observed on the exchange in recent months. “Most of the recent IPOs have risen sharply, some having nearly doubled in price. Akdital, for example, is currently trading at nearly twice its capital increase price, which was itself already well above its IPO price,” he notes.
To these fundamentals are added timing factors specific to the end of the stock market year. “Year-end always involves major adjustments, particularly for funds whose net asset value is calculated on a weekly basis,” explains Farid Mezouar. He adds: “When a stock is heavily traded and quickly changes weight in the market, it becomes a natural adjustment point. It is not a matter of hidden strategy, but of technical adjustments in a market where order books can tighten quickly.”
Finally, the SGTM episode is part of a broader transition phase for the market. “The Casablanca Stock Exchange is changing scale. The arrival of large, highly visible and very liquid capitalizations is altering management habits and testing existing mechanisms,” he concludes.
Written in French by Safae Hadri, edited in English by Eric Nielson
