The Arab Monetary Fund said that the Arab stock markets lost a total of US$140 billion during the period from January 25 to March 4, 2011. The market capitalization of 16 Arab markets was valued at $862 billion on March 4, compared with $1.002 trillion on January 25, a day prior to the political crisis in Egypt.
These losses offset all the earning achieved during 2010. Arab stock markets gained about 9 percent in 2010 with their market capitalization touching $983.8 billion, the report from the Abu Dhabi-based fund said. All in all, some 14% of the total market capitalization was lost in the same period.
The Fund's report said that due to the current instability foreign investors decided to withdraw their investments from the Arab markets over the past weeks.
