Arab stock markets had another bad week, with only Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the Emirates bucking the trend, Bakheet Financial Advisors (BFA) reported on Saturday, January 20.
The week's worst performer was the CSE index in Morocco that plunged 4.8 percent to 592.83 points, with shares in banks and blue chips down due to investor pessimism in the market, which has now lost 10 percent on the year.
The Riyadh-based BFA said Egypt's Hermes Financial Index also fared badly, diving to 7,227.11 points, a fall of 3.9 percent, as most blue chips lost ground.
The Jerusalem index of the Palestinians was down a hefty 2.8 percent, sliding to 189.21 points, in a further weakening of the economy under the impact of the four-month-old conflict with Israel.
Jordan's ASE lost ground by the same 2.8 percent margin, closing the week on 135.74 points, amid profit-taking in Arab Bank, which lost 5.1 percent, BFA said.
Among the winners, the NCFEI index in Saudi Arabia surged 2.7 percent to 2,339.07 points in a trading boom on the back of strong 2000 banking results and OPEC's decision to cut oil output.
Due to a bullish trend in stocks of the Beirut downtown reconstruction venture Solidere, Lebanon's BLOM index gained 2.1 percent to rise to 580.82 points.
And in the Emirates, the NBAD index climbed 1.1 percent to close on 2,437.43 points as "investors returned to the market after stock prices reached low levels," BFA said.
The trend was downward in the rest of the BFA weekly review of 12 Arab bourse, with Oman's MSM index falling 1.0 percent to 197.99 points, while the Tunindex in Tunisia slipped to 1,408.36 points, down 0.2 percent.
Kuwait's KSE index and the BSE in Bahrain were both slightly down by 0.1 percent, at 1,321.90 points and 1,774.86 points respectively. On January 14, the KSE had weakened to 1,318.2, its lowest level since November 1995.
In Qatar, the CBQ was unchanged on the week, closing on 209.51 points. —(AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
