(AFP, RIYADH) - Egypt's stock market dived 6.6 percent on the week while the lack of any breakthrough at the Camp David summit hit the Palestinian, Jordanian and Lebanese bourses, Bakheet Financial Advisors (BFA) said Saturday.
The Riyadh-based investment specialists said in a weekly review that six Arab markets went down, led by Saudi Arabia, five were up and one was unchanged.
The Hermes Financial Index in Egypt plunged to 8,651.17 points, due to a lack of liquidity and a rush by investors to raise cash for Orascom Telecom, a new IPO (initial public offering), said BFA.
The other big loser on the week was the Jerusalem index of the Palestinians which slumped 2.7 percent to 261.55 points amid investor disappointment over the state of the US-brokered Middle East peace summit in Camp David, it said.
Jordan's ASE index was down 1.1 percent, closing on 135.17 points, a seven-year low, while the BLOM index in Lebanon closed on 591.41 points, a fall of 0.6 percent following a 5.7 percent collapse the previous week.
The best performer in the Arab world was the NCFEI index in Saudi Arabia that surged 2.7 percent to 2,154.56 points on the back of impressive first half results of the petrochemical giant SABIC.
The largest listed company in the Middle East more than quadrupled its net profits to 549.3 million dollars, compared to the first six months of 1999.
In Tunisia, the Tunindex also fared well, climbing 1.0 percent to 1,392.19 points. But the CSE in Morocco lost 1.3 percent, closing on 704.94 points, as most blue chips fell.
Qatar's CBQ index gained 0.8 percent to close to 212.40 points, while the NBAD in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait's KSE index both inched up 0.1 percent, to 2,596.85 and 1,385.70 points respectively.
Elsewhere in the Gulf, Oman's MSM index lost another 0.5 percent and closed on 206.52 points, continuing its slide since April. The BSE index in Bahrain stayed unchanged on 1,901.54, its lowest value since August 1997.
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
