The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) gained 0.20 percent last week, closing at 6,478.58 points.

Despite showing weakness at the beginning of the week, the market was able to make a comeback on the last two trading days to close the market with an overall positive week-to-week change. Overall, six sectors closed the week with a loss, the Jeddah-based Financial Transaction House (FTH) said in its weekly market report.

Positive sector closes were seen in the other nine sectors that displayed gains ranging from 2.95 percent in the Cement sector to a gain of 0.28 percent in the Media & Publishing sector, the FTH report said.

Saudi Cement was the top gainer last week as its shares jumped 9.47 percent to close at SR72.25. The other major gainers were Saudi Steel Pipe Co. (6.71 percent), Saudi Arabian Mining Co. (5.04 percent), Saudi Fransi Cooperative Insurance Company (5.02 percent) and Southern Cement (4.56 percent).

Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) shares surged 9.09 percent to SR90 last week.

Al-Alamiya for Cooperative Insurance Co.'s shares plunged 9.14 percent to SR31.80 last week

The value of Saudi traded shares fell to SR12.23 billion last week compared to SR13.09 billion in the previous week.

Arab stock markets rebounded last week, drawing benefit from rising oil prices, better performance of global markets and improving liquidity, financial analysts said Friday.

They predicted that regional markets stood to score more gains in the coming weeks among expectations of rising demand on oil and better results for the first quarter of 2010.

"I believe crude prices and leaks about the first quarter results will be the main catalyst for Middle East markets in the coming weeks," an Amman-based portfolio manager said.

"However, we cannot exclude the psychological impact on regional markets of developments on global bourses, new reports about world recovery and geopolitical factors mainly those pertaining to the row over the Iranian nuclear file and the aftermath of the Iraqi general elections," he added.

Jordanian stocks rebounded last week, led by blue chips, amid reports of improving liquidity and rising demand by foreign funds, analysts said.

The all-share index of the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) gained 1.16 percent last week, to close at 2,466 points, according to the market's weekly report.

Kuwaiti shares extended gains last week against the backdrop of Zain telecom group's sale of its African operations to India's Bharti for about $10.7 billion, analysts said.

The KSE all-share index went up 0.8 percent last week, closing at 7,435 points. The market found support from higher demand on the Kuwait National Bank and the Gulf Bank.

However, the weekly report of the Kuwait Global Investment House predicted that the Kuwaiti exchange could witness profit-taking moves this week, particularly in the light of the failure of some leading companies to declare their 2009 results so far.

The United Arab Emirates shares turned to the green last week after weeks of plunges amid reports of improving liquidity and higher foreign demand.

The benchmark of Dubai stock exchange edged higher, closing at 1,585 points from 1,582 points previous week.

Abu Dhabi's index gained one percent last week, closing at 2,727 points.

Egypt's AGX30 index, measuring the performance of the market's 30 most active stocks, also gained 1 percent, closing week at 6,783 points.

The GulfBase GCC Index increased by 0.46 percent to 3,861.50 points last week. The value of GCC traded shares, however, dropped by 7.78 percent to $4.89 billion and volume declined by 11.92 percent to 2.92 billion of shares.