The Palestinian Jerusalem index rose this week for the first time since the uprising against Israel began in September, but shares in Egypt plummeted anew, Bakheet Financial Advisors reported Saturday, December 23.
The Jerusalem index put on two percent to close at 207.62 as tentative negotiations resumed in Washington.
In neighbouring Lebanon, the Blom index climbed 1.9 percent to 588.12 due to "investor optimism about the economic reforms", the Riyadh-based specialists said.
However there was little to cheer elsewhere as the Arab world's worst market performer in 2000, the Hermes Financial Index in Cairo, added to its woes. It shed another 3.9 percent to 7,566.23, making a loss of 41.9 percent since January.
Media and telecommunication companies dragged the market down as Egypt Media dropped 9.4 percent and MobiNil 6.5 percent.
Saudi stocks fell 2.5 percent on the week as world oil prices plunged about 10 percent. The NCFEI all-shares index, the most highly capitalized in the Arab world, closed at 2,229.91 points.
The market was not swayed by good news on the domestic front, where the government reported a budget surplus of $45 billion for 2000 and forecast a balanced budget for next year — the first time in 18 years. But the NCFEI is still 9.9 percent up on the the year.
Also among the losers in the BFA's weekly review of 12 Arab stocks markets was the NBAD index in the United Arab Emirates which slipped 1.5 percent to close on 2,391.07.
Investors moved out of the market ahead of the long holidays marking the end of Ramadan, BFA noted.
And Kuwait's KSE fell 1.1 percent to 1,340.70, affected once again by the slow pace of reforms. Other Gulf markets managed to remain just positive.
Bahrain's BSE saw no change at 1,797.56, the MSM in Oman moved 0.1 percent up to 202.11 and the CBQ Index of Qatar held on to a 0.3 percent gain to finish on 211.40.
In Jordan, the Amman Stock Exchange rose 0.4 percent to 133.05 points, the same percentage increase as Tunisia's Tunindex, which closed on 1,441.99, to hold on to its ranking as the best performing Arab stock market of the year with an increase of 20.9 percent.
However the CSE index in Morocco dropped one percent to 662.65 points. — (AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
