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DUBAI / Reuters
Most stock markets in the Gulf fell on Tuesday with Qatar’s index hit particularly hard, but Saudi Arabia ended almost flat as petrochemical shares rebounded.
Qatar’s stock index dropped 2.2 percent; all banking shares fell with Qatar National Bank retreating 2.9 percent.
A monthly Reuters poll, published on Tuesday, found 62 percent of Middle Eastern fund managers expected to decrease their allocations to Qatari equities over the next three months and none to increase them. That was the most negative outlook towards Qatar since the survey was launched in September 2013.
One of the reasons is that by the end of March, all inflows of passive funds related to the second part of Qatar’s upgrade to FTSE Secondary Emerging Market status are due to have been completed. Also dividend payouts are due to be completed in the coming weeks, leaving managers with less impetus to buy shares afterwards.
Abu Dhabi’s index dropped 1.7 percent as the largest share, telecommunications operator Etisalat, slumped 4.1 percent.
Dubai’s index gave up small gains made early in the day and fell 0.1 percent as trading volume almost quadrupled from Monday’s very low level. Financially troubled builder Arabtec lost 2.3 percent.
Saudi Arabia’s index, however, closed nearly flat at 6,972 points, bouncing from a session low of 6,913 points. The Reuters poll found funds at their most bullish towards Saudi equities since February 2015.
Petrochemicals, which traded lower for most of the session, recovered with Advanced Petrochemical adding 1.5 percent. But banks remained weak with Saudi British Bank falling 1.9 percent.
Cairo’s index lost 0.7 percent; it has dropped in four of the last five sessions on profit-taking. Real estate firm SODIC lost 1.0 percent to 12.10 Egyptian pounds despite reporting a near doubling from a year earlier in fourth-quarter net income, as revenues for full-year 2016 reached an all-time high.
Analysts at Cairo’s Pharos Research attributed the improving bottom line to impressive building delivery figures as well as high demand. “There is considerable upside potential to SODIC’s stock, given its current market price. The stock price has been under pressure since January 2017, with selling pressure taking the price down to September 2016 levels,” said Pharos.