CAIRO, 25 June 2004 — The Saudi bourse, the Middle East’s largest in terms of capitalization, rose 2.5 percent this week, while the Cairo market dropped 2.4 percent amid rampant rumors about the health of President Hosni Mubarak. Saudi’s TASI index closed yesterday at 5,604.86 points from 5,467.9 last week, after two weeks of falling prices.
The positive innings cut against the grain of a depressing political week in the Kingdom, where another US expatriate, kidnapped by extremists, was executed.
Bakheet Financial Advisors said the limited increase was driven by both petrochemicals company SABIC, which posted gains of 5.8 percent, despite the lowest weekly trading value for four months.
Egypt’s HHI dropped 2.4 percent to 14,128.05 points from 14,487.11 points, dipping Sunday after Mubarak left for a back operation in Germany.
Shares in mobile telephone companies also fell after unconfirmed reports of the cancellation by the US-led coalition of three mobile telephone contracts in Iraq, including one operated by an Egyptian company.
In Kuwait, the second-largest stock market in the Arab world, shares took their first tumble after five weeks of sustained gains, dropping 0.7 percent in the week that ended Wednesday on the back of profit-taking, traders said. The Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) index finished the week at 5,424.30 points, down from 5,459.90. The index is now up 13.2 percent on last year’s closing of 4,790.20 points.
The bourse made strong gains in the first three days of trading, hitting a record high of 5,475.70 points on Monday. It shed most of the gains on Tuesday. Analysts said the market surged in the past five weeks on forecasts of better-than-expected half year results, following a moderate performance in the first quarter, and on the back of abundant cash flow and strong oil prices.
Meanwhile, Oman’s MSM registered the biggest increase in the Middle East, picking up 3.7 percent to close at 3,487.36 points compared to 3,360.44 points the previous week.
Elsewhere in the Gulf, indexes recorded only minor fluctuations. Qatar’s CBQ notched up 0.7 percent to 964.9 points from 957.73.
Bahrain’s BSE crawled up 0.1 percent to 2,472.24 points from 2,468.40 points, while the NBAD in the United Arab Emirates slid 0.3 percent to 5,392.19 points from 5,411.18 points last week.
The TSE in Tehran shot up 3.5 percent to close Wednesday at 12,334 points from 11,909.95 points a week earlier.
For its part, the Beirut market posted a small gain of 1.8 percent after plunging 4.4 percent last week, coming in to close at 596.83 points compared to 585.73 points the previous week. In Amman, the ASE index registered a minor rise of 0.4 percent, closing at 2,828 points compared to 2,814.5 points the previous week. The Palestinian Al-Quds index lost 0.3 percent to 175.08 from 175.77.