Most Arab stock markets took another beating on the week because of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the Saudi and Tunisian bourses the main exceptions, Bakheet Financial Advisors (BFA) reported Saturday, December 16.
The NCFEI index in Saudi Arabia made a 4.6 percent recovery, after four weeks of losses, to close the week on 2,285.92 points on the back of a strong showing by the petrochemical giant SABIC and investor confidence over the upcoming Saudi budget.
Tunisia's Tunindex, also bucking the southward trend, surged another 3.3 percent to hit 1,435.70 points, totting up a gain of 20.4 percent since the start of 2000 to underpin its ranking as the best performing Arab stock market of the year.
And the CSE index in Morocco climbed 2.2 percent to a close of 669.38 points, boosted by "investor confidence for the government budget of 2001," said BFA, while Bahrain's BSE gained a slight 0.2 percent to close the week on 1,797.28 points.
Among the losers in the BFA's weekly review of 12 Arab stocks markets, the worst hit by the Palestinian uprising against Israel was the Palestinians' own Jerusalem index. It slumped another 2.7 percent to 203.48 points.
In Jordan, the ASE index lost 0.9 percent to close on 132.48 points.
The NBAD index in the Emirates slipped 0.6 percent to close on 2,428.49 points, while the MSM in neighbouring Oman closed on 201.90 points, down 0.5 percent, accumulating a loss of 19.3 percent on the year so far.
The worst Arab performer in 2000, the Hermes Financial Index in Egypt, eroded another 0.4 percent to close on 7,873.65 points, adding up to a loss of 39.6 percent since January.
Both the BLOM index in Lebanon and Kuwait's KSE shed 0.3 percent to close on 577.41 points and 1,355.40 points respectively. The Qatari CBQ index, closing on 210.76 points, slipped 0.1 percent.— (AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
