(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Stock markets in Saudi Arabia and Dubai pulled back yesterday, while Qatar Exchange index gained 136.56 points, or 1.11 percent, when the bourse closed at 12,415.93 points.
The traded value reached QR1.16bn with a volume of 28,712,862 shares from 10,800 transactions yesterday.
Indices of all sectors gained, barring banks and financial services. Real estate sector gained the most by 5.97 percent. Telecoms gained 1.84 percent. Yesterday, 34 companies gained, six went down while three remained unchanged.
Qatar's index gain was largely because of Ezdan Holding, which surged its daily 10 percent limit ahead of an expected fourth-quarter earnings release. Another local firm, Aamal Co, which announced a 10 percent cash dividend and a 5 percent bonus share issue on Tuesday, also surged 10 percent. Vodafone Qatar surged 7.3 percent while its trading volume jumped to a seven-month high. The firm said this week it had become fully Shariah-compliant, opening the stock up to Islamic funds. Industries Qatar, the second-largest petrochemicals firm in the Gulf, fell 1 percent.
Meanwhile, oil extended its selloff yesterday, with benchmark Brent crude plumbing below the key $55 a barrel mark, as pressure piled on the market after data showed record high inventories in US crude. Brent tumbled more than $3, or almost 6 percent, to a session low of $54.48 a barrel by 1857 GMT. US crude fell over $4, or nearly 8 percent, to an intraday low of $48.78. US crude stocks jumped by 6.3 million barrels last week to 413.06 million barrels, their highest since records began in 1982, the government-run Energy Information Administration reported. Traders and investors had expected a build of about 3.5 million barrels for the week ended January 30.
Saudi Arabia's equities index edged down 0.6 percent to 9,169 points as most stocks pulled back, including some petrochemicals such as Yanbu National Petrochemical Co and National Industrialisation Co (Tasnee), down 2.9 and 1.5 percent respectively.
Investment firm Kingdom Holding edged down 0.4 percent after it said it had sold most of its stake in media giant News Corp.
The Saudi stock index approached but then pulled back from technical resistance on its 100-day average, now at 9,379 points, as trading volume remained active but fell by about a third from the previous day.
Dubai's index, which had also rallied along with oil this week, fell 1.1 percent as Dubai Islamic Bank slid 1.7 percent and Dubai Investments dropped 2.7 percent.
Abu Dhabi's benchmark, which had lagged Dubai's rebound, climbed 1.3 percent to 4,649 points after breaking above technical resistance at 4,606 points, its late December high. The break triggered a bullish right triangle formed by the highs and lows since that high, and pointing up to around 4,900 points.
Egypt's market extended gains, rising 0.9 percent as Al-Youm Al-Sabea news website reported that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates would provide Cairo with $10bn in deposits before an investment conference in March.
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