Most Middle East markets also advanced, shrugging off
weakness in global stocks.
Talaat Moustafa (TMG) rose 1.4 percent. An Egyptian court
had earlier ruled the government must scrap a contract under which the
developer bought its Madinaty land.
On Wednesday, however, a state committee said the government
could repossess the land and reallocate it back to TMG and a day later Prime
Minister Ahmed Nazif indicated the government would follow the committee’s
recommendation.
“Despite being unofficial, the legal committee’s willingness
to reassign Madinaty to TMG is surely positive,” Omar Darwish said shortly
before the market opened.
Palm Hills, which also faces a legal challenge over some of
its land, climbed 6.6 percent, while Egypt’s index rose 0.7 percent to its
highest finish since May 18.
Oman Telecommunications Co. (Omantel) climbed 2.2 percent to
a seven-week high as investors bet it was a better buy than the initial public
offering of a rival operator.
Nawras, a unit of Qatar Telecom, said it may raise as much
as $608 million in its IPO. It is slated to list on the Oman bourse on Oct. 27.
This is priced at around 11 times price to earnings, said
Shailendra Singh, head of asset management at Al-Shurooq Securities, while
former monopoly Omantel is trading at a p-e ratio of about 8, drawing buyers
into the latter’s stock.
“The Nawras IPO is seen as expensive and so there isn’t too
much selling in the market to take part in this offering,” said Singh.
Oman’s index slipped 0.1 percent, easing from Wednesday’s
four-month high, but Singh forecast the benchmark would rise ahead of quarterly
earnings.
“Third-quarter results should be in line with expectations,
but stock prices are discounted more than that,” he added.
Dubai’s index climbed 0.9 percent, bouncing back from the
previous day’s 1.6 percent drop, its biggest decline for 12 weeks.
Emaar Properties rose 1.1 percent and Emirates NBD added 2.8
percent.
“I don’t think there was a lot of international buying — it
was local buying after yesterday’s weakness as some local investors who had
missed the early stages of the rally seized a second opportunity to enter,”
said Matthew Wakeman, EFG-Hermes managing director for cash and equity-linked
trading. “Whether this was a good idea so close to third-quarter results
remains to be seen.
“Today’s gains were a bit surprising, given softness in
global markets, but we may be starting to detach a little bit, which would be
good for our markets.”
Dubai trading volumes slumped to a six-session low.
“Volumes are a lot better than they were a few weeks ago and
I wouldn’t read too much into this fall,” said Wakeman.
“What’s more interesting is that there wasn’t a gap down at
the session end, which shows people are happier to hold positions for the
longer term.”
Barwa Real Estate and Masraf Al Rayan rose 1.6 and 1.3
percent respectively, as Qatar’s index hit a 23-week high rising 0.3 percent to
7,662 points
Meanwhile, other Gulf markets reported mixed trading. Abu
Dhabi’s index climbed 0.3 percent to 2,639 points. Kuwait’s stocks slipped 0.08
percent to 6,840 points. Oman’s market slipped 0.1 percent to 6,454 points.
Bahrain’s index climbed 0.4 percent to 1,446 points.
