Iran Tensions Bring Same Tension To Arab Stocks

Heightened tensions in Iran brought tensions to Gulf Arab stocks across the region. Here are the following stocks highlights: Saudi index sharply lower....




Saudi Arabia
The Saudi index plunged 3.18 percent, its biggest one-day fall since February 9, to close below 9,000 points for the first time since April 1. It finished at 8,998.28 points. Shares of Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) and Samba Financial Group which plummeted 5.11 percent and 4.52 percent respectively. Al Rajhi Bank fell 2.31 percent. It reported a net second-quarter profit of 8.2 percent on Tuesday. “The political tension is overshadowing any positive financial results,” said Hisham Tuffaha, head of investment research at Bakheet Investment Group. Almarai Co, the largest dairy company in the Gulf Arab region by market value, was one of the few stocks to end higher, advancing 0.61 percent, after it posted a 42.3 percent rise in second-quarter net profit.
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Saudi Must Open Up Economy To foreign Investors

Saudi Arabia is among the top contenders to be the region's financial centre. But it must open up its economy to possible foreign investors to realize its vision to become a financial centre. It likewise needs to invest in education and related training so to make sure that the next generation has the skills to fill the jobs in the future.

Dubai was singled out as a major regional success story that, with no oil or gas resources of its own, has managed to achieve success by opening up and building an economy based on ideas and services.

While rising oil prices are a windfall to crude producing countries, a number of countries in the region are not producers, and it was pointed out that these governments need to pay special attention to the needs of their populations.

"Dubai should be able continue it's growth spurt into the next decade", said Roberto Rodrigues of Solvay Financial.

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Update: Arab Finance

Here is some finance-related updates in Arab countries.

A group of Omani financial services companies plan to start the country's first reinsurer to help develop the local capital market, Gulf News reported, citing founding investor Murtadha al-Jamalani.

Dubai's New Airport Attracts 50 Aviation Companies, 24/7 Says

Fifty aviation companies have contacted authorities at Dubai World Central, the emirate's new airport, to reserve places, Emirates Business 24/7 said, citing an aviation official.

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Saudi Stocks Reflects Positive Investors Confidence

As expected, Saudi stock market has gained good uptrend records, which was being backed up by the positive first quarter results of some companies. The uptrend shows positive confidence of the investors.

According to Tadawul’s monthly statistical report for April, total equity market capitalization at the end of April jumped by 11.19 percent to SR1.86 trillion ($496.55 billion).

The total value of traded shares in April also increased by 26.85 percent over the previous month to reach at SR201.65 billion ($53.77 billion).

The total number of shares traded surged 26.20 percent to 5.40 billion compared to 4.28 billion shares traded in March. The total number of transactions executed during April, however, dropped by 4.84 percent to 4.30 million compared to 4.52 million trades for March.

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Gulf stocks increase more than $19 billion for six weeks

For the past six weeks, Gulf markets has recorded a gain in stocks of more than $19 billion as shown inthe Kuwaiti and Qatari Stock Exchange.

From around $1.058 trillion at the end of 2007, the combined market capitalisation of the GCC stock exchanges swelled to about $1.077trn on Wednesday, said the AMF, the league’s main financial organisation.

The slight increase followed a massive growth of $463.7bn during 2007, as their market capitalisation ended 2006 at $695.2bn.

The rise this year was mainly in Kuwait, which shot up to $209.5bn on Wednesday from $135.3bn at the end of 2007.

Qatar and Bahrain were the two other GCC gainers, rising to $102.7bn from $95.5bn and to $27.6bn from $21.1bn respectively.

Oman recorded a slight growth to around $24.3bn from $23bn, while there was a decline of nearly $10bn in the UAE. The report showed Abu Dhabi’s exchange receded to $116bn from $121.1bn and Dubai’s market to nearly $133.9bn from $138.1bn.

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