Jordan's bourse rebounded two percent in a mixed week for stock markets around the Arab world, Bakheet Financial Advisors (BFA) said Saturday, January 6th.
The AFM index closed up at 135.7 points on the back of rising banking and industry stocks. The index crashed 20.5 percent during 2000 as Jordan's proximity to the Palestinian uprising and its slow economic growth kept foreign investors away.
The Saudi NCFEI all-shares index, the most highly capitalized in the Arab world, rose 0.5 percent on the week to close at 2,268.66 as world oil prices steadied at around $23 a barrel, the Riyadh-based specialists said.
The Hermes Financial Index in Cairo, which plunged almost 48 percent in 2000, and the NBAD index in the United Arab Emirates also finished 0.5 percent up, at 7,578.22 and 2,409.27 points respectively, in the first week of trading since the end of public holidays marking the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
The CSE index in Morocco dropped 2.4 percent to 642.44 points to head the losers after blue chips dipped, while the Palestinians' Al-Quds index fell 2.1 percent to close on 203.34 points.
Tunisia's Tunindex, the best performing of the 12 Arab stock markets last year with a 11.6 percent increase, closed down 0.9 percent at 1,429.12.
In Lebanon, the Blom index dipped 2.0 percent to 580.59 points due to expectations of poor results from Solidere, the corporation rebuilding the country from its long civil war.
Kuwait's KSE hit a five-year low as investor confidence remained dampened by the lack of action on economic reforms, closing 1.5 percent down at 1,328.50 points.
Elsewhere in the Gulf, Bahrain's BSE dropped 0.7 percent to 1,792.68, the CBQ Index of Qatar moved 0.4 percent down to 210.49 and the MSM in Oman lost just 0.1 percent to close at 200.98 points. —(AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
