The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) gained 1.65 percent to 6,674.41 points last week.
"Fresh liquidity also entered the market after banks eased credit restrictions and started to give loans with portfolios of stocks accepted as collateral," Abdullah Bashen, director of Team One brokerage, said.
In terms of sectors, multi-investment saw a weekly loss of -0.27 percent, while the cement sector saw a loss of -0.96 percent. Otherwise, all other sectors closed the week with gains. Weekly sector gains ranged from 0.32 percent in the agriculture and food industries, to a gain of 2.53 percent in the banks and financial services sector, the Jeddah-based Financial Transaction House (FTH) said in its weekly market report.
"Although the market did face some resistance when breaking above the psychological barrier of 6,600, it has shown strong resilience, and backed up with a strong liquidity of SR16.36 billion for the week, the highest weekly liquidity for the past two months. In addition, on both a weekly and daily basis, the market has managed to break above the upper Bollinger band, which indicates a strong positive momentum. However it could mean a period of slight profit-taking may be approaching," the FTH report said.
The Mohammad Al-Mojil Group was the top gainer last week as its shares jumped 9.57 percent to SR22.90. The other major gainers were Al-Babtain Power & Telecommunication Co. (7.37 percent), Al-Ahlia Insurance Company (7.05 percent), Arabian Pipes Company (5.79 percent) and Bank AlJajira (5.56 percent).
The Saudi Steel Pipe Company was the top loser as its shares plunged 7.71 percent to SR33.50 last week.
Last week, the CMA approved the National Company for Glass Industries' request to increase its capital from SR250 million to SR300 million through the issuance of one bonus share for every existing five shares owned by the shareholders and Saudi Cement's request to increase its capital from SR1.02 billion to SR1.53 billion through the issuance of one bonus share for every existing two shares owned by the shareholders.
Meanwhile, the aggregate earnings of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) companies showed a second consecutive year of declines, Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz) said in its latest report.
With 67 percent of companies declaring results so far, aggregate results show a five percent decline for the GCC as a whole for 2009.
Fourth quarter earnings plummeted due to a correction in real estate prices in Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait, the report said.
Furthermore, the debt crisis in Dubai led to greater provisioning by banks against credit losses and impairment in the value of investments and adversely impacted banking earnings during the fourth quarter of 2009.
The financial services and real estate sectors' earnings took the largest hit, down 67 percent and 64 percent respectively in 2009. GCC banks earnings declined 1 percent in 2009, primarily due to a last quarter dip in earnings.
Saudi Arabia registered a growth of 26 percent in its earnings, the Markaz report added. UAE's corporate earnings declined 32 percent due to Dubai's debt woes. The banking sector, which contributed 45 percent of overall corporate earnings, witnessed a decline of 19 percent in 2009.
The Markaz report said Kuwait registered an earnings growth of 29 percent in 2009. Bahrain was the worst performer for 2009 in the GCC region, while Oman's real estate sector reported an earnings growth of 22 percent in 2009.
Arab stock markets extended gains last week as investors seemed to have restored confidence and were eyeing a better performance for the first quarter of the year, financial analysts said Friday.
Reports about an imminent agreement between Dubai World and its lenders also helped to boost regional markets last week, they added.
"I believe both local and foreign investors are focusing attention again on Middle East markets, apparently encouraged by expectations of a better performance in the first quarter of the year," said CEO of the Noor Investment brokerage Wajdi Makhamreh.
Jordanian shares also rallied for the second week in a row amid reports of expanding foreign demand and easing restrictions on bank credit to traders, Makhamreh said.
The all-share index of the Amman Stock Exchange went up 2.14 percent last week, to close at 2,535 points, according to the ASE weekly report.
Kuwait's KSE all-share index shed 0.6 percent, closing week at 7,414 points.
The UAE stock exchanges of Dubai and Abu Dhabi were the scene for violent fluctuations last week. However, the benchmark price of the Dubai stock market closed in the green at 1,726 points, rising by 2.5 percent on a weekly basis.
Abu Dhabi's all-share index closed week almost unchanged at 2,832 points.
"Speculation over the Dubai World debt deal dominated the UAE markets, with investors showing caution and preferring to wait to see what comes out next week," Dubai-based analyst Khalid Darwish said.
Egyptian stocks were the main loser last week. Egypt's AGX index, measuring the performance of the market's 30 most active stocks, fell 2.3 percent, closing week at 6,610 points.
The GulfBase GCC Index increased by 1.67 percent to 3,967.61 points last week. The value of GCC traded shares surged 15.38 percent to $7.56 billion and volume rose 2.62 percent to 5.61 million of shares.
