In an overall mixed week for the Arab markets, while Oman’s bourse ended the week 3.6 percent higher at 171.82 points, the Palestinian Jerusalem index fell more than five percent to close at 163.56 points, reported AFP news agency. The rise in the MSM index in Muscat for the third week in a row, was attributed to strong corporate financial results for the first six months of the year. Nonetheless, the index is still 14.6 percent lower than the figure recorded at the end of 2000.
On the back of the rising Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Jerusalem index has lost more than 21 percent since the beginning of 2001. Another loser for the week was the Lebanese BLOM index which had lost 2.5 percent closing at 493.31 points, due to the severe 6.5 percent drop in the market leader Solidere stock.
While the Saudi Arabian NCFEI index lost 1.4 percent closing at 2,393.95 points, the CSE index in Morocco fell 2.2 percent to 626.23 points, as the market accounted for the dividents paid by various companies.
On an upside note, the Kuwaiti KSE index reached a 31-month high closing above the 1,700-point barrier at 1705.90. While Egypt's Hermes Financial Index also gained 1.7 percent to close on 6,203.32 points due to the rise in tech stocks, Jordanian pharmaceutical stocks led the ASE index 1.2 percent higher at 142.58 points.
Tunisia’s Tunidex gained a mere 0.2 percent to 1,320.57 points, while the NBAD index in the UAE rose 0.4 percent to close on 2,449.41 points. Qatar’s and Bahrain’s indices both remained unchanged at 237.48 and 1,726.26 points respectively.— (MENA Report)
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
