Most Arab stock markets posted losses this week, highlighted by yet another plunge on the Cairo bourse as the liquidity crisis there continued to bite, a report by Bakheet Financial Advisors said Saturday.
Cairo's Hermes index fell for the fourth consecutive week, dropping 4.1 percent to 7,568.87 points and bringing to 41.9 percent its losses in local currency terms since the beginning of the year. Bakheet put this down to the "absence of any positive economical indicators and (the) continuing liquidity squeeze." The only bright spots were in Saudi Arabia and Oman.
The Saudi market, the Arab's world's most heavily capitalized bourse, saw its NCFEI index advance 1.3 percent to 2,197.45 points. Bakheet said the market continued its upward trend "influenced by an overall positive environment helped by robust oil prices.
The Omani bourse's MSM index edged up 0.2 percent to 197.65 points.
Kuwait's KSE index fell 1.4 percent to 1,349.90 points on investor dissatisfaction with the slow pace of economic reforms.
The NBAD index in the United Arab Emirates gave up 0.4 percent to 2,598.73 points, while Qatar's CBQ dropped the same amount to 214.10.
In Manama, the BSE shed 0.5 percent to 1,886.73 points.
The new Palestinian market, along with others in the Levant, was suffering from negative fallout from the failure of the Camp David peace summit. The Jerusalem index dipped 0.9 percent to 245.99 points.
Lebanon's BLOM index dropped 0.7 percent to 584.80 and Jordan's ASE index fell 0.6 percent to 139.03 points.
Tunisia's Tunindex shed 0.7 percent to 1,431.00 points, while the Moroccan CSE index dropped 1 percent to 695.10 points.
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
