The Saudi stock market, the largest in the Middle East, closed slightly up Sunday for the first time in a fortnight, while other bourses in the region continued to tumble amid fresh concerns about the global financial crisis.
The United Arab Emirates, the second biggest economy in the oil-rich Gulf after Saudi Arabia, guaranteed deposits in local banks in an attempt to halt the slide of shares. The Saudi stock market made its first gains since September 28 after monetary authorities cut the repurchase rate and lowered compulsory bank reserves.
The Tadawul All-Shares Index (TASI), which shed almost six percent on Saturday, finished trading up 0.34 percent on 5,814.60 points, spurred by the banks and petrochemicals sectors.
Deputy governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) Mohammad al-Jasser told Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel the repo rate was cut by half a percentage point to five percent and the compulsory reserve was cut from 13 percent to 10 percent.
The TASI however is still down 47.3 percent on the year and has shed about 23 percent since the start of last week. The Dubai Financial Market Index slipped 5.4 percent to 3,025.08 points, slightly recovering from early losses that sent the index below the 3,000 mark. It has dipped 26.7 percent since last week.
The slide in the DFM came after Dubai authorities changed the movement of stocks from a maximum of 15 percent down to 10 percent in a bid to limit losses in a single day.
Market leader giant real estate developer Emaar however slid by the maximum cap. The real estate index was down by 9.74 percent. The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, the other market in the UAE, recovered some of its early losses to close down 2.34 percent at 3,132.39 points with the banking sector slumping 3.8 percent despite the government guarantees.
The Kuwait Stock Exchange, which shed around three percent in early trading, rebounded to finish just 0.4 percent down at 11,858.10 points, spurred by the banking sector which gained 2.5 percent.
The Doha Securities Market dropped 7.2 percent to 7,029.95 points while the tiny Muscat Securities Market finished down 5.7 percent to below 7,000 points at a year's low. All Gulf stock markets experienced turbulence last week but reversed course at the end of the week after several governments in the region cut interest rates to make lending cheaper and promised to inject billions of dollars into the financial system.
Egypt's CASE-30 stock index, which shed 20 percent last week, closed 3.1 percent down at 5,492 points after recovering from an initial plunge of 9.01 percent.