JEDDAH/AMMAN: Saudi shares were volatile last week mainly due to falling oil prices, but rebounded during the last two days apparently in response to rallies on world markets.

The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) gained 0.6 percent last week, closing at 6,355.82 points.

TASI is currently 32.3 percent higher than the year’s start, according to the weekly report of the Riyadh-based Bakheet Investment Group (BIG).

The report attributed the market’s limited transactions and liquidity shortage last week to “the uncertainty felt by investors regarding the developments that may occur in major world economies during the Eid holiday”.

The BIG expected Saudi stocks to rally after the Eid holiday, barring any sharp retreats on global markets.

According to Tadawul’s monthly report, at the end of November TASI closed at 6,355.82 points, up 87.27 points or 1.39 percent over the close of the previous month. On an YTD basis TASI registered a positive return of 32.33 percent.

Highest close level for the index during the month was 6,371.97 points as on Nov. 2. Total equity market capitalization reached SR1.24 trillion ($329.94 billion), increased by 1.55 percent over October.

The report, which was put on Tadawul website, said total value of shares traded for the month of November reached SR77.16 billion ($20.58 billion), down by 32.28 percent compared to October.

The total number of shares traded dropped 35.30 percent to reach at 3.05 billion in November compared to 4.72 billion shares traded during the previous month.

The total number of transactions executed in November reached 1.94 million compared to 2.77 million trades in October 2009, decreasing by 29.92 percent.

Arab stock markets closed higher last week, making benefit from global market gains and the positive sentiment emanating from reports published in the United States backing recovery expectations, financial analysts said Friday.

However, they noticed that the modest gains by most Arab stock markets reflected hesitation by investors to commit themselves to medium term positions ahead of the weeklong Eid Al-Adha holiday which began on Friday.

“I believe regional markets drew momentum last week from the gains of the global markets, but traders appeared to be reluctant to take new positions to avert losses that may be incurred in case world markets plummeted during the long holiday,” an Amman-based portfolio manager told Arab News.

He said that the Gulf stock markets were negatively affected by the drop in oil prices last week.

“However, we think that regional stocks are set to score fresh gains when trading resumes at the beginning of December, particularly when investors will start to focus attention on annual profits,” he added.

The Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) was the scene last week for narrow fluctuations and thin trading due to what analysts described as shortage of liquidity and weak foreign demand.

The ASE all-share index gained 0.39 percent last week, closing at 2,583 points, according to the market’s weekly report.

Kuwait’s KSE all-Share price index gained 2.7 percent last week, closing at 6,934 points.

The United Arab Emirates shares lost ground apparently due to worries over fears that the Dubai government could default on its debt gripped investors, analysts said.

The Dubai World, the government investment company behind some of the emirate’s most ambitious projects, said on Wednesday it was seeking to delay repayment on a tranche of its debt.

The benchmarks of the stock exchanges of Dubai and Abu Dhabi declined 1.7 percent and 0.5 percent last week, to close respectively at 2,093 points and 2,910 points. Egypt’s AGX30 index, measuring the performance of the market’s 30 most active stocks, climbed 3.2 percent, closing at 6,376 points from previous week’s close at 6,181 points.

The GulfBase GCC Index closed 0.77 points higher at 3,889.19 last week. The value of GCC traded shares, however, fell 22.27 percent to $5.36 billion and volume declined by 3.04 percent to 3.09 billion of shares last week.