DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s stock market ended higher on Sunday in response to rising oil prices, although the Qatari index bucked the trend to close lower.
Oil prices - a catalyst for the Gulf’s financial markets - rose more than 2% on Friday after US data supported expectations of demand growth, but both benchmarks fell for a seventh straight week, their longest streak of weekly declines in half a decade, on lingering oversupply concerns.
US job growth accelerated in November, with the Labor Department’s employment report showing non-farm payrolls increased by 199,000 jobs last month, above the 180,000 estimate of economists polled by Reuters, after rising by an unrevised 150,000 in October. The unemployment rate fell to 3.7% from the near two-year high of 3.9% in October.
Saudi Arabia’s benchmark index gained 0.6%, with AL Rajhi Bank gaining 2.8% and Etihad Atheeb Telecommunication Co.
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