JEDDAH/AMMAN: Saudi shares plummeted last week, responding to negative performance on global markets and falling crude prices.
The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) shed further 4.85 percent last week, closing at 4,542.11 points.
TASI is currently 5.4 percent lower so far this year.
“Successive plunges at Wall Street put downward pressure on Saudi blue chips, particularly the Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC), which fell dramatically as investors became weary over the conglomerate’s “performance on international markets under the current cloudy conditions of the world economy”, the Riyadh-based Bakheet Investment Group (BIG) said in its weekly report.
SABIC shares closed 14.38 percent down last week at SR39.30 as over SR2 billion worth of shares changes hands, making it most active by value.
Arabian Insurance Cooperative Co. was the top loser last week as its shares dropped 16.35 percent to SR22. The National Agricultural Development Co. shares fell 15.28 percent to close at SR34.40.
The Saudi stock market turnover also dropped last week to SR20.40 billion from SR24.42 billion in the previous week.
The BIG expected investors to “keep watching oil prices closely, as they represent an important indicator reflecting the impact of the current global recession.”
“In the short run, however, some investors will keep reallocating their investment positions to make benefit from the current market volatility,” the group said.
World oil prices slid on Friday on profit-taking. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for April delivery, fell 87 cents to $44.35 a barrel. Brent North Sea crude for April shed 50 cents to $46.01 per barrel.
Arab stock markets plunged further last week under the pressure of bad news coming from world financial markets and retreating oil prices, financial analysts said yesterday.
“Regional markets are still fragile and responsive to bad news coming from Western capitals where governments struggle tentatively to deal with the deepening recession,” Wajdi Makhamreh, chief operating officer of the Amman-based Sanabel International Holding, told Arab News.
“Arab stock markets are suffering from lack of vision and ambiguity with the correlation between the Arab area and global markets is increasingly becoming more clear,” he added.
Makhamreh pointed out that investors “were ignoring the results of listed firms and instead they are monitoring what is going on at US and European bourses.”
He said: “investors at regional markets prefer speedy profits and hit-and-run tactics to the exclusion of long-term commitments.”
Jordanian shares lost further ground last week amid a deepening liquidity shortage due to contraction in lending by banks, Makhamreh said.
However, there was news in the market that foreign funds particularly from the Gulf region were staging a comeback to the Amman Stock Exchange, he added.
The ASE all-share price index shed 2.23 percent last week, closing at 2,616 points, led by blue chip firms.
Kuwait’s KSE all-share price index plunged 3.6 percent last week, closing at 6,444 points from previous week’s close at 6,688 points.
The benchmark price of the United Arab Emirates stock exchanges of Dubai and Abu Dhabi gained 1.9 percent last week, to close at 2,486 points.
Egypt’s CASE-30 index, which measures the performance of the market’s 30 most active stocks, gained 0.99 percent on Thursday to close week at 3,598 points.
The GulfBase GCC Index declined 4.75 percent to 2,774.15 points. The value of GCC traded shares also fell 11.09 percent to $7.80 billion and volume dropped slightly to 6.04 million of shares.
— With input from Abdul Jalil Mustafa
