Middle East Stock Market Round Up
Most Gulf stock markets fell on Thursday as Brent oil dipped below 50 per barrel again and Saudi Arabia led losses after a bomb attack in the southwest of the country.
The main Saudi Tadawul All-Share Index was down about 1 percent before news of the attack and then slid further closing 1.6 percent down at a four-month low of 8655 points. Petrochemical producer Saudi Basic Industries down 2.3 percent was the main drag on the benchmark.
Banking and consumer blue chips were also soft. National Commercial Bank fell 0.9 percent and food maker Savola Group dropped 2.3 percent.
Telecommunications operator Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) fell 3.1 percent.
The stock has now plunged 14.5 percent since the firm revised earnings for more than two years and posted a second-quarter loss last week.
Abu Dhabi’s bourse slipped 0.2 percent as telecommunications operator Etisalat dropped 3.2 percent. Its competitor Dubai-listed du said on Wednesday the United Arab Emirates had started to open its fixed-line consumer telecommunications market to competition.
Du whose shares rose as much as 0.8 percent early on Thursday before closing 0.2 percent lower in a broad sell-off had been largely confined to the newer areas of Dubai until it started offering fixed-line consumer services across the whole country last month stepping up competition with Etisalat du CEO Osman Sultan told a conference call.
Dubai’s index fell 1.0 percent as property-related stocks pulled back after surging in the previous session. DAMAC Properties the most traded stock fell 1.4 percent having risen its daily 15 percent limit on Wednesday when the company said it had more than tripled its second-quarter profit.
Budget carrier Air Arabia fell 1.8 percent after it reported a 13.6 percent drop in second-quarter net profit to 146.2 million dirhams (39.8 million). That was better than analysts had expected on average they had predicted 133.7 million dirhams but revenues at the airline fell apparently because of price competition.
Dubai port operator DP Worldadded 1.3 percent; it has gained 5.9 percent since July 28 when it announced plans for a 1.6 billion Jebel Ali port upgrade and reported a 4 percent increase in container volumes for the first half.
Qatar’s bourse fell 0.6 percent. Mesaieed Petrochemical Mslid 1.3 percent after announcing its net profit fell 55 percent to 403 million riyals (110.7 million) in the first half of this year.
But Islamic lender Masraf Al-Rayan edged up 0.3 percent after Moody’s changed its outlook on the bank’s long-term issuer ratings to positive from stable.
‘In addition to the bank’s growing diversification our positive outlook is also driven by our expectation that the bank will continue to post strong overall financial performance supported by Qatari government spending and the overall solid operating environment’ the credit rating agency said.
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