JEDDAH/AMMAN: Saudi shares were volatile last week, but the Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) gained 5.35 percent since the resumption of trading last Saturday after a week-long Eid Al-Adha holiday. TASI closed week at 4,903.81 points, which represents a 55.5-percent decline since the beginning of the year.

The Riyadh-based Bakheet Investment Group (BIG) said in its weekly report investors are anticipating companies announcements of dividends, that will halt profit making in the short run, in addition to the government’s annual budget that should be released this week, which will help investors evaluate the best performing companies listed on the Saudi stock exchange that mainly depend on the state of the local economy.

Al-Ahli Takaful Co. (ATC) was the top gainer last week as its shares jumped 37.63 percent to SR34.29.

The top loser last week was Saudi Arabia Refineries Co. (SARCO) as its shares plunged 11.33 percent to SR66.50.

Bupa Arabia’s shares surged 8.24 percent to SR9.85 last week. Bupa Arabia said in a statement on Tadawul’s website on Wednesday that Benjamin David Jemphrey Kent and Damien Vincent Marmion, the foreign partner representatives on the Bupa Arabia board of directors, have submitted their resignations on Wednesday which were later accepted by the board.

Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) shares jumped 10.80 percent last week to SR59.

The stock market turnover was over SR22.42 billion last week.

Arab stock markets showed mixed performance last week as investors appeared skeptical over the annual results of listed firms in the wake of the financial crisis that swept the world’s leading economies, financial analysts said yesterday.

“I believe most investors prefer to take a wait-and-see approach at this juncture when the world financial crisis keeps unfolding and listed firms preparer to announce their annual results early in January,” Wajdi Makhamreh, chief operating officer at the Amman-based Sanabel International Holding said.

“I think markets will assume caution in the coming couple of weeks with analysts casting doubt on the 2008 performance of business in the region, which have been affected in one way or another by the global financial turbulence,” he said.

Makhamreh pointed out that regional markets would be affected in the coming week with the movement of oil prices which plummeted on Thursday despite OPEC’s decision to cut production by 2.2 million barrels per day.

Jordanian shares rebounded last week on what Makhamreh said was foreign buying of blue chips, particularly the Arab Bank, the Arab Potash Co., the Jordan Phosphate Mines Co. and the Jordan Petroleum Refinery.

The all-share price index of the Amman Stock Exchange gained 5.31 percent last week, closing at 2,943 points, according to the ASE weekly report.

Kuwaiti stocks plunged further last week despite a decision by the Central Bank of Kuwait to trim the basic interest rate by 1.00 percent, to 3.75 percent, in line with the Fed’s drastic cut of the dollar interest rates to between zero and 0.25 percent.

The benchmark of the Kuwaiti Stock Exchange lost 3.27 percent last week, closing at 8,624 points.

The Gulf Invest brokerage attributed the decline mainly to “lack of liquidity” due to delay in entering the market by the state-owned Kuwait Investment Corporation (KIC) as earlier promised by the government. Financial analysts expected the KIC to start trading tomorrow.

Egypt’s CASE-30 index, which measures the performance of the market’s 30 most active stocks, climbed 9.7 percent this week to close on Thursday at 4,453 points. The GulfBase GCC Index increased by 1.27 percent to 3,540.12 points last week. The value of GCC traded shares, however, declined by 20.66 percent to $9.19 billion and volume dropped 16.42 percent to 3.78 billion of shares.

— With input from Abdul Jalil Mustafa