RIYADH: Equity markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council region remained weak on Thursday as investor indifference loomed large across all key indices of the region.
While the Dubai Financial Market General Index closed 28.69 points higher at 3,445.70, the worst among all indices, the Tadawul All Share Index was the worst performer, down 95.56 points to end at 10,412.16.
The FTSE ADX General Index, MSX 30 Index and Bahrain All Share Index closed with slight gains at 10,010.64, 4,768.67 and 1,936.98 respectively.
The Qatar Exchange index fell 78.20 points to 10,424.20, even as the Borsa Kuwait Premier Market index dropped 33 points to 8,201.47.
Junaid Ansari, head of investment strategy and research at Kuwait-based Kamco Invest, said: “Kuwait and Qatari benchmarks each declined 0.7 percent today, while the rest of the GCC markets were flat, with only Dubai seeing a notable gain of 0.8 percent. ” , told Arab News.
“The decline in Kuwait was mainly led by the Mid- and Small-Cap Main Market Index, which declined 2 per cent, while the Premier Market Index declined 0.4 per cent,” Ansari said.
Brent crude LCOc1 futures fell 12 cents to $84.97 a barrel as of 3:27 p.m. ET, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 futures fell 15 cents to $78.32 a barrel.
Non-oil private sector growth in the United Arab Emirates fell in January, hitting a 12-month low, as weak global conditions weighed on export demand, the latest S&P Global UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index report showed.
The S&P Global UAE PMI slipped slightly to 54.1 from 54.2 in December and is the lowest since January 2022.
Dubai logistics firm Aramex announced a 27 percent drop in net profit for the year 2022 to 165 million dirhams ($44.92 million), while its revenue fell 2 percent to 5.9 billion dirhams in the same period.
Closer to home, Saudi Arabia’s index of industrial production rose 7.3 percent year-on-year in December 2022, driven mainly by higher production and manufacturing activities in mining and quarrying, the General Authority of Statistics declared.
Saudi British Bank posted a 52 percent net profit increase in 2022 from SR3.20 billion a year ago to SR4.87 billion ($1.3 billion), mainly due to higher gross operating income due to an increase in net special commission income. Was inspired. SABB’s earnings per share also increased from SR1.56 to SR2.37 during the period.
But none of the corporate announcements or economic indicators could lift investor sentiment in the Kingdom.
“Saudi indices have lost nearly 4 per cent in the last nine trading sessions, with the banking index being the biggest loser at 6.5 per cent, followed by the media and capital goods indices, which have registered losses of about 4.7 per cent and 4.4 per cent, respectively,” Ansari said. Pointed towards
TASI’s benchmark index’s total trading turnover on Thursday was SR3.5 billion, slightly higher than Wednesday’s SR3.41 billion.