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On Sunday, a basket of Gulf bourses had winded up the session in red inks, mostly heaved down by a sell-off pressure in global commodity markets last week, while Saudi Arabia’s benchmark index had extended its latest leg of losing streak into a third straight session as investors continued to engage in a profit-taking frenzy after the index had hit a multi-year high.
In point of fact, in the day’s steep losses in major Gulf bourses were almost entirely driven by a latest sell-off pressure in global crude oil market, a key fundamental for Gulf investors’ morale, as Brent shed 1.04 per cent last week and US WTI crude oil futures’ price had plummeted 1.03 per cent, though, losses were largely capped by a sustenance in demands of crude oil across the globe but Southeast Asia, which have still been reeling from the fallouts of a pandemic outbreak.
However, crude oil demands in India had picked up significantly, as refiners were reportedly jumping on the bandwagon of a latest cohort to coffer up large-scale profit margins amid a multi-year high crude oil prices, largely symmetrical to US crude refiners, as Saudi Arabia have been planning to raise its crude oil prices for Southeast Asia.
Gulf bourses end modestly lower
Citing statistics, in the day’s Gulf market wind-down, Saudi’s benchmark index drowned 0.5 per cent, mostly weighed down by a 1.7 per cent fall in petrochemical SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp), spanning a latest leg of losses into a third straight session in a row.
However, Saudi Aramco ended 0.4 per cent higher after its third-quarterly profit had more than doubled to $30.4 billion compared to the same time a year earlier. Dubai’s main index edged 0.1 per cent higher with blue-chip property developer Emaar Properties shares rising as much as 0.8 per cent, while Abu Dhabi shed 0.1 per cent, mostly hurt by a 1.7 per cent plunge in Alpha Dhabi Holdings.
Outside the Gulf, Egypt’s blue-chip index fell 0.8 per cent, beating a hasty retreat after propelling 1.3 per cent higher on previous session. Elsewhere in the Gulf, Qatar’s main index shed 0.4 per cent and Bahrain gained 0.1 per cent, while Oman and Kuwait added 0.8 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively.
