JEDDAH/AMMAN: Saudi shares led regional recovery with the Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) gaining 10.8 percent last week. The index closed at 5,322.22 points compared with the market’s close on Dec. 31, 2008 at 4,802.99 points.

TASI was one of the worst performers among the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) markets last year, shedding 56.5 percent from the start of the year.

The rebound at the Arab world’s largest bourse was led by the petrochemical sector, particularly the Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC,) and the banking & financial services sector, analysts said.

“Investors’ focus will still be on the release of the annual financial statements, specially that of the leading companies operating in both the banking and petrochemical sectors, until then the market will be fluctuating within narrow rages,” the Riyadh-based Bakheet Investment Group (BIG) said in its weekly report. Stock Prices of 122 companies were up, while three companies were in the red, one was unchanged and one didn’t trade. As for top 10 blue chips, the highest gains were in Banque Saudi Fransi and SABB (Saudi British Bank) up by 21.4 percent and 14.8 percent respectively.

The stock market turnover was SR34.74 billion last week compared to SR19.8 billion in the previous week. Alinma Bank dominated trading value at 15 percent followed by SABIC at 11 percent and Zain KSA at 5 percent.

Alinma Bank shares surged 5.41 percent to SR11.70 last week. SABIC shares jumped by 13.59 percent to SR58.50 and Zain KSA by 8.92 percent to SR11.60.

Arab stock markets rebounded last week after the year-end holiday, but financial analysts said yesterday that the rally could be short-lived when annual results of listed firms start to come out. “I believe the rebound was in response to improving performance on world markets and the jump in oil prices that accompanied the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip,” an Amman-based portfolio manager said.

“However, we think that markets will assume caution in the coming weeks as investors expect corporate profits to retreat due to the world financial crisis and the subsequent recession,” he said.

Jordanian shares were volatile last week as investors monitored clues to the annual results of listed firms, analysts said.

The all-share price index of the Amman Stock Exchange gained 1.60 percent last week, to close on Thursday at 2,803 points, according to the ASE weekly report.

Kuwait’s KSE all-share price index shed 0.8 percent on Thursday, closing week at 7,372 points.

The benchmark of the United Arab Emirates stock exchanges of Dubai and Abu Dhabi climbed 5.4 percent last week, closing at 2,690 points. Egypt’s CASE-30 index, measuring the performance of the market’s 30 most active shares, gained 3.2 percent last week, closing at 4,634 points.

The GulfBase GCC Index surged 2.32 percent to 3,364.17 points. The value of traded shares also jumped 61.27 percent to $11.15 billion and volume increased 67.61 percent to 4.30 billion of shares.

Positive performance

The BMG Saudi Index ended last week on a positive note. The index gained 27.26 points or 11.5 percent to close at 265.19 points. The total market turnover for the week grew by a strong 89.6 percent to SR22.2 billion versus SR11.7 billion registered in the previous trading week. The number of shares traded over the week also rose by 82.4 percent from 688.1 million shares to 1.3 billion shares last week. The average price-earnings (P/E) ratio for 2007’s earnings was 12.2 times, while the price-to-book ratio (P/BV) was 2.82 times.

— With input from Abdul Jalil Mustafa