Dubai leads Gulf stocks’ rally, oil gains

12/10/2016 06:17 AST

Most major bourses in the Gulf rose on Tuesday as oil prices held near one-year highs. Dubai’s main index rose 1.0 per cent as nine-tenths of traded stocks advanced.

Drake & Scull, the most heavily traded stock, jumped 4.2 per cent; the builder had surged 7.0 per cent on Monday after appointing a new chief operating officer, Wael Allan, replacing Khaldoun Tabari, a major shareholder.

Emaar Properties climbed 0.6 per cent. On Monday the developer started building what it said would be the world’s tallest tower, another record for a company that built the highest skyscraper, Burj Khalifa. Riyadh’s stock index gained 1.5 per cent, trimming its loss over the last four weeks to 8.4 per cent. All 14 listed petrochemical producers advanced after Brent oil futures surged as much as 3 per cent on Monday.

Saudi Basic Industries, which has not yet reported its third-quarter results, added 0.6 per cent.

The positive mood spilled into other sectors with rebounds in some shares that had been beaten down over the last several weeks by the government’s spending cuts.

Retailer Fawaz Alhokair jumped 3.9 per cent and supermarket operator Al Othaim added 3.4 per cent.

But Riyad Bank, the first Saudi bank to report third-quarter earnings, dropped 2.1 per cent after it posted an 18.9 per cent fall in net profit as costs rose. It made 729 million riyals ($194.4 million) in the three months to Sept.30, down from 899 million riyals in the same period of 2015. Analysts polled by Reuters had on average forecast 1.05 billion riyals.

In Qatar the main index closed up 0.3 per cent as Qatar National Bank, the largest listed share, gained 0.5 per cent after it reported a 10.2 per cent increase in third-quarter net profit to 3.45 billion riyals ($947.5 million).Aalysts had forecast 3.26 billion riyals.

Blue chips helped lift Kuwait’s general index 1.1 per cent. National Bank of Kuwait, the largest Kuwaiti lender, rose 1.7 per cent and telecommunications operator Zain added 1.5 per cent. December Brent crude oil futures were down 42 cents at $52.72 a barrel by 1100 GMT, below Monday’s one-year high at $53.73, but off an intraday low at $52.51, while U.S. futures were down 43 cents at $50.92 a barrel.

Large-cap banks were the main drag with First Gulf Bank dropping 1.7 per cent.

The Gulf Today