DUBAI: Most stock markets in the Gulf ended higher on Sunday in response to Friday’s rise in oil prices, with the Saudi index rising for a fourth consecutive session.
Oil prices - often a catalyst for the Gulf’s financial market - jumped more than 4% on Friday, rebounding from a 4-month low, with US sanctions on some Russian oil shippers lending support.
Saudi Arabia’s benchmark index gained 0.5%, with oil giant Saudi Aramco gaining 0.3% and the country’s biggest lender Saudi National Bank advancing 1.5%.
In Qatar, the index closed 0.2% higher, helped by a 1% rise in the Gulf’s biggest lender Qatar National Bank .
A softer tone to US economic data last week has fuelled rate-cuts bets, pushing Treasury yields down and lifting equity markets.
Monetary policy in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is usually guided by the decisions of the US Federal Reserve, as most regional currencies are pegged to the dollar.
Outside the Gulf, Egypt’s blue-chip index advanced 2.1%, buoyed by a 3.8% jump in Commercial International Bank (CIB).
CIB, Egypt’s biggest private bank, has secured a $150 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to shore up its capital base, it said in a statement on Thursday.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told Reuters on Friday the Fund was “seriously considering” a possible augmentation of Egypt’s $3 billion loan programme due to economic difficulties posed by the Israel-Hamas war.
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