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Bloomberg
Qatar’s stock market led the Gulf higher early on Tuesday, boosted by a surge in blue chips such as Qatar National Bank (QNB), while Dubai tested technical resistance.
The Qatari stock index climbed 2.1 percent as QNB, the country’s biggest bank, jumped 4.4 percent to 165.00 riyals in unusually heavy trade, rising above resistance on last September’s peak of 163 riyals. The next resistance is on the May 2015 peak of 169 riyals.
Petrochemical producer Industries Qatar added 3.4 percent. In addition to the impact of strong oil prices and global stock markets, Qatar is benefiting from expectations for a fresh inflow of foreign funds when it is promoted this September to the status of secondary emerging market from frontier market by index compiler FTSE.
Dubai’s index edged up 0.1 percent to 3,605 points, trading on technical resistance at its April peak. Any break of resistance would point up to the October peak of 3,740 points.
Many second-tier stocks such as Deyaar Properties rose but heavyweight Emaar Properties, which had led the market up in recent days, pulled back 0.7 percent.
Saudi Arabia’s index also edged up 0.1 percent, once again supported by petrochemicals with Saudi Basic Industries up 0.6 percent.
Zain Saudi Arabia added 1.4 percent after saying it would save 175 million riyals ($46.7 million) by using a Chinese bank to refinance a 2.25 billion riyal loan that it had secured just two months ago.