The Egyptian and Palestinian bourses were the best performers, each notching up gains of 4.6 percent, in a good week for Arab stock markets, Bakheet Financial Advisors (BFA) reported Saturday, January 27.
The Jerusalem index of the Palestinians bounced back from a four-month decline since the outbreak of clashes with Israel, recovering to 197.89 points.
Due to gains in most blue chips, especially MobiNil which posted high profits for 2000, Egypt's Hermes Financial Index shot up to 7,558.68 points, cutting its losses since the start of the month to 1.3 percent.
In the Gulf, the top performer was the NBAD index in the Emirates that closed on 2,536.63 points, up 4.1 percent, after market leader Etisalat which holds a telecoms monopoly announced a 21.7 percent increase in profits in 2000.
It was also a good week for Morocco's CSE index, which strengthened 3.7 percent to 615.01 points as investors returned to the market after stock prices had reached their lowest levels in four years.
Jordan's ASE index gained 1.1 percent to rise to 137.26 points, while both the BLOM index in Lebanon and Kuwait's KSE were up 0.6 percent, closing on 584.33 points and 1,329.90 points respectively.
The heaviest fall among the 12 Arab markets in the BFA review was a 1.9 percent loss on Bahrain's BSE index, which weakened to 1,740.29 points. The NCFEI in Saudi Arabia lost 1.8 percent on the week, falling to 2,297.15 points, as oil prices continued to ease despite OPEC's decision to cut output to stabilize the market, BFA said. Oman's MSM index was down 0.6 percent, closing on 196.76 points, while the Tunindex in Tunisia and Qatar's CBQ index were both slightly down 0.2 percent, to 1,405.65 points and 209.14 points respectively. — (AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
