Gulf stock markets were mixed on Monday after Brent oil slipped towards $63 per barrel on news of a slide in China's fuel imports. China, the world's biggest net oil importer, bought nearly a quarter less crude in May than it did in the previous month, official data showed. China's imports of oil products also fell by more than 6 percent, while oil product exports fell 10 percent.
-- Saudi Arabia edges down on oil, earnings
-- Qatar falls after FIFA official says it may lose World Cup
-- Egypt falls as central bank forex reserves shrink
Saudi Arabia's main index edged down 0.6 percent as petrochemicals heavyweight Saudi Basic Industries fell 1.0 percent and major lender Al Rajhi Bank lost 1.2 percent. Makkah Construction And Development Co fell 1.8 percent after posting a 10.2 percent decrease in quarterly profit in year-on-year terms. The company follows the Islamic calendar and its reporting periods are different from those of most listed firms.
But oil shipper Bahri edged up 0.5 percent as freight rates from the Gulf to Japan appeared to have bottomed out following a sharp decline from their 2015 peak in the second half of May. Qatar's benchmark lost 0.7 percent after Domenico Scala, the independent chairman of FIFA's audit and compliance committee, told a Swiss newspaper on Sunday that no evidence of vote-buying in Doha's successful 2022 World Cup bid had emerged so far, but that if it did, Qatar's hosting rights would be invalidated.
UAE, EGYPT Dubai's index slipped in early trade as investors were dumping most stocks and buying shares in mortgage lender Amlak Finance, which surged 15 percent to their daily limit for a fourth session in a row. But as Amlak hit the limit, buyers switched to other names, lifting the wider market, which closed 0.7 percent higher.
Amlak resumed trading last week after being suspended for nearly six years because of debt problems. Dubai's index has roughly doubled in that time. Dubai Parks and Resourts was the second most traded stock after Amlak, rising 2.7 percent to a record closing high of 1.16 dirhams. The company, which is building several theme parks in the city, does not expect to generate a profit until 2018, but has become a favourite of technicals-focused investors in the last few weeks.
Egypt's bourse fell 0.7 percent as most stocks declined, extending the sell-off which followed the news that the country had swung to a current account deficit in the first quarter. Egypt's foreign currency reserves dropped to $19.560 billion at the end of May from $20.525 billion the previous month, the central bank said on Sunday, indicating that its trade balance and current account could be negative in the current quarter as well.
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