CAIRO, 26 September 2003 — Saudi Arabia’s stock market closed yesterday with a new drop for the second consecutive week, while most other bourses in the Middle East registered good results. The Tadawul All-Shares Index (TASI) fell two percent to 4,280.66 points from last Thursday’s closing of 4,371.27 points.
The TASI was hit Tuesday, when it fell under the psychological 4,000-point barrier, before picking up steam again the last two working days.
In Kuwait, the second largest bourse after Saudi Arabia, the KSA index closed at 4,270.7 points, up 1.6 percent from 4,202.9 points last week. The bourse in Qatar surged 3.3 percent, with the CBQ index closing at 670.78 points compared to 649.01 points last week.
In Oman, the MSM index registered a slight increase, closing at 257.402 points, up from 256.18 points last week.
In the United Arab Emirates, the NBAD index closed at 4,334.74 points, slightly up from 4,300.50 points the previous week.
In Bahrain, the BSE index also improved, closing at 2,134.84 points, compared to 2,053.50 points last week.
In the Palestinian West Bank town of Nablus, the Al-Quds index closed slightly down at 172.87 points compared to 175.49 the previous week. Jordan’s ASE index finished at 236.16 points, slightly down from last week’s closure at 240.06 points.
In Lebanon, the Blom Stock Index also dropped, closing yesterday at 434.33 points compared to 446.94 points last week.
In Egypt, the CASE 30 index closed slightly up at 936.45 points, up 1.7 percent compared to 920 points last week.
The Tehran bourse ended its working week Tuesday because Wednesday was a holiday in Iran, on 9,044.32 points up from last week’s closure at 9,002.43 points.