The Moroccan and Omani bourses made the best showings in a mixed week for Arab stock markets, Bakheet Financial Advisors (BFA) reported on Saturday, February 10. The worst performer of the week was Bahrain's BSE index which lost 3.2 percent to close on 1,692.45 points as state-owned telecoms company Batelco, which represents 25 percent of the market capitalization, shed 4.2 percent on the back of a government announcement ending its monopoly.
Morocco's CSE index gained 2.2 percent to close on 646.11 points after the government announced measures to revitalize the stock market, the Riyadh-based BFA said. Oman's MSM was up 1.5 percent to 196.32 points due to a 11.7 percent surge in Bank Muscat stocks after its merger with Commercial Bank of Oman.
The NBAD index of the Emirates rose one percent to close on 2,576.26 points, while Kuwait's KSE was up 0.7 percent at 1,349.60 despite a political crisis which gripped the emirate after the cabinet resigned.
The Tunindex in Tunisia inched 0.6 percent up to 1,418.95 points, while the ASE index in Jordan creeped up 0.4 percent to 137.22 points.
As for the losers, Egypt's Hermes Financial Index dropped 2.9 percent to 7,476.80 points due to a slump in media, telecoms and cement stocks. The highest capitalized in the Arab world, the NCFEI index in Saudi Arabia, edged down 1.8 percent to 2,229.33 points due to declining profit announcements by market leader SABIC for the fourth quarter of 2000, said the investment specialists.
The Jerusalem index of the Palestinians shed 0.9 percent to close on 201.92 points, while Lebanon's BLOM index dropped 0.8 percent to 555.84 points and Qatar's CBQ index slipped 0.7 percent, closing on 205.93, BFA said. —(AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
