They believed regional markets could pick up this week in case European policymakers succeeded in working out a bailout package for Greece.

”I think the important thing for Arab markets at this moment is the success of the Europeans to come up with a convincing solution for their exacerbating sovereign debt problem,” Nizar Taher, head of brokerage at the Jordan Ahli Bank, told Arab News.

”Regional investors are apparently giving priority while making decisions to global economy woes rather than to the third quarter results of listed firms,” he said.

Saudi shares were steady last week, receiving momentum from the third quarter earnings of leading firms, foremost the Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC).

The Saudi petrochemical conglomerate last week reported a 55 percent increase in profits for the quarter ending on Sept. 30 to SR8.2 billion from SR5.3 billion in the same period of 2010.

But the earnings announced by SABIC and other leading companies failed to spur the Saudi market due to the euro zone concerns, analysts said.

The Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) closed week marginally higher at 6,106.74 points, compared with previous week’s close at 6,105.04 points.

”The market’s failure to respond to the third quarter profits lays mainly in the fact that the majority of dealers in the market are individuals who have outside investment affiliations,” Saudi analyst Mohammad Anqari said.

He expected the Saudi market to rally after the pilgrimage season which is due to start in the first week of November.

Another Saudi analyst, Turki Fadaak of Al-Bilald Investments, cited the persistent European debt crisis as the main reason behind the Saudi market’s failure to respond to the quarterly results.

However, he expected the Saudi index to crash the resistance area of 6,180 points upward in the coming couple of weeks.

Kuwait’s KSE all-share index gained 0.48 per cent on weekly basis, making benefit from the good quarterly earnings, to close at 5,880 points.

Kuwaiti analyst Fahd Shraian of Al-Ittihad brokerage believed ”political mobility” in the country had prevented the index from moving higher.

The benchmarks of the United Arab Emirates stock exchanges of Dubai and Abu Dhabi shed 1.3 percent and 1.36 percent, to close week respectively at 1,366 points and 2,444 points.

Qatar’s index fell by 0.4 percent closing at 8,364 points, while Bahrain’s benchmark closed 0.49 percent in the red at 1,147 points.

Jordanian shares rebounded last week. The all-share index of the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) gained 1.1 percent on weekly basis to 1,957 points.

Egypt’s AGX-30 index, which measures the performance of the market’s 30 most active stocks, climbed 3.5 percent last week to close at 4,205 points.