JEEDAH: Gulf stock markets retreated on Sunday after Brent crude oil pulled back below $39 a barrel, while Egypt’s bourse erased early gains.

Brent fell 3 percent last week, although it finished the first quarter up 6 percent. In response, Riyadh’s stock index fell 1.6 percent to a five-week low of 6,126 points, breaking technical support at its mid-March low of 6,202 points.

From Sunday, the Saudi market started trading at 10 a.m. local time (0700 GMT), an hour earlier than previously, and closed at 4 p.m. local time, half an hour earlier, as part of efforts to develop the market and link trading with other regional bourses.

The petrochemical sector fell 2.2 percent.

With first-quarter financial results due in a few weeks, analysts anticipate a further profit squeeze in the sector after the government, to save money, cut gas feedstock subsidies at the end of last year. Riyadh-based NCB Capital expects the sector’s net income for 2016 to fall 9.7 percent to SR20.0 billion ($5.33 billion).

There is also uncertainty over economic policy.

“It seems that retail investors want to sit on some cash for the time being until there is more clarity regarding the National Transformation Plan,” said a Jeddah-based analyst.

The insurance sector, favored by speculative day traders, tumbled 3.9 percent.

But Saudi Arabian Mining (Maaden) added 3.5 percent after it said commercial output had begun at the Ad Duwayhi gold mine in western Saudi Arabia. The impact would begin to appear in second-quarter financial results.

National Shipping Company (Bahri) added 1.9 percent after the oil transporter said it had signed a murabaha, or Islamic finance, facility with Riyad Bank worth 1.425 billion riyals ($380 million) to finance construction of five very large crude carriers.

Dubai’s index fell 1.6 percent in modest volume to 3,303 points, retreating from technical resistance on the March peaks of 3,397-3,421 points.