The Omani and Saudi bourses bucked a slide in Arab stock markets this week in which Egypt was the hardest hit, Bakheet Financial Advisors (BFA) said Saturday.
The Riyadh-based investment specialists said Egypt's Hermes Financial Index fell 4.2 percent to 7,778.43 points, following a decline of four percent the previous week.
The Hermes was hit by selling pressure on "instability in the Egyptian pound exchange rate and absence of cash in the economy", it said.
Another big loser on the week was Lebanon's BLOM index which fell 3.6 percent to close on 641.37 points as shares in Solidere, the country's largest building company responsible for rebuilding downtown Beirut, lost ground and a 44-percent budget deficit was announced for 2000.
The best performer was Muscat's MSM index which rose 0.9 percent to 196.04 points due to a surge in shares of the National Bank of Oman.
In oil-rich Saudi Arabia, the NCFEI all-shares index which is the highest-capitalized in the Arab world edged up to 2,361.77, a modest improvement of 0.5 percent.
BFA said investors in the kingdom were keeping a close watch on the volatile world oil market and awaiting corporate financial results for the third quarter.
Elsewhere in the Gulf, Qatar's CBQ index and the BSE in Bahrain both lost 0.9 percent, closing on 211.38 points and 1,865.26 points respectively.
The NBAD in the Emirates weakened to 2,624.49 points, down 0.4 points, while Kuwait's KSE index inched down 0.3 percent to 1,443.90 points as tension between Iraq and Kuwait pushed traders to sell.
In Tunisia, the Tunindex fell a hefty 2.0 percent to 1,423.07 points, with most blue chips losing ground.
The Amman Stock Exchange index shed 1.9 percent, closing on 131.64 points, under selling pressure from foreign institutional investors and falls in Arab Bank and Arab Potash shares.
The Jerusalem index of the Palestinian territories stumbled 1.6 percent to 247.15 points as PADICO, the investment organization, which accounts for 30 percent of the market's capital, lost 3.3 percent.
In Morocco, the Casablanca Stock Exchange index slipped 0.1 percent to 726.85 points.
©Agence France Presse
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
