JEDDAH: Gulf stocks retreated yesterday as a shaky start to the week on international exchanges and weaker oil prices convinced regional investors to book profits from a recent rally.

After hitting multi-week highs on Sunday, the Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait benchmarks all fell. Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s markets, which have lagged their neighbors’ gains, also declined.

Although the Gulf markets are moving broadly together, they each have domestic drivers. Saudi Arabia’s index fell on profit-taking in its petrochemical and banking sectors, Dubai’s struggles were linked to its beleaguered property companies and Kuwait declined on poor earnings from a key bank.

“Dubai is stuck in a trading range, despite very sharp recent upward moves in Qatar and Saudi Arabia,” said Nadim Jalad, a trader at Naeem Shares and Bonds in Dubai.

“Dubai is weak compared to other Gulf markets and is underperforming the rest of the region because its stocks are ultimately all related to real estate and the problems in this sector are far from over.”

Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) fell 3 percent after heavy late selling. Since hitting a two-year low on March 9, SABIC almost doubled in price to Sunday’s close, helping the Saudi benchmark to rise 45 percent over the same period, but investors are now selling to take advantage of the gains.

The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) closed 77.77 points or 1.29 percent lower at 5,947.94 yesterday.

Only 3 sectors closed with gains yesterday, namely Real Estate Development, Insurance and Industrial Investment, gaining 0.14 percent, 1.07 percent and 1.62 percent respectively.

Losses on the other hand ranged from 0.10 percent in the Telecom sector to 2.28 percent in the Transport sector. The losses were supported by relatively high liquidity of almost SR10 billion and market breadth was still negative, with 33 advancers losing to 85 decliners, giving an AD ratio of 0.39.

“A negative session from the start but with a mild and acceptable level of losses after a series of strong gains. In the recent past we have seen profit-taking scenarios take place during the session before reclaiming a positive close, which was not the case today (Monday). Moreover, on the technical side, closing with a black bearish candle is increasing the odds for further weakness ahead,” the Jeddah-based Financial Transaction House (FTH) said in its daily market commentary.

Kuwait’s financial stocks dropped to send the country’s index lower, following a 91 percent fall in first-quarter profit at Commercial Bank of Kuwait.

The benchmark fell 1.2 percent to 7,681 points, its first reverse for nine sessions.

The Qatar index fell 2 percent to 6,505 points, its largest one-day decline for nearly three weeks and first reverse in nine sessions.

The Omani index dropped 3.4 percent to 5,422 points, its largest one-day fall in 15 weeks.

The Dubai index fell 1.4 percent to 1,652 points and Abu Dhabi index ended 1.1 percent lower at 2,613 points.

The Bahraini index slipped 0.1 percent to 1,602 points.

— With input from agencies