22 June 2017
The Trading Middle East team wishes you and your loved ones a festive Eid Al Fitr.We will resume with the newsletter on Wednesday.

Asian stocks advanced on Thursday. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 0.3 percent.Chinese shares added to gains made on Wednesday after MSCI included mainland shares in its emerging market indexes. The blue-chip index .CSI300 rose 0.4 percent.

In the Gulf, Saudi Arabia's stock market jumped 5.5 percent on Wednesday after the architect of the kingdom's economic reforms Prince Mohammed bin Salman was appointed crown prince and index compiler MSCI said it would consider upgrading Riyadh to emerging market status. 

Dubai's index lost 1.0 percent as Dubai Financial Market, the only listed exchange in the Gulf, fell 3.4 percent. The Abu Dhabi index closed near flat.

Oil prices rose on Thursday after U.S. crude and gasoline stockpiles fell, but worries over whether OPEC-led output cuts would be able to rein in a three-year glut continued to drag.

Brent crude futures were 4 cents higher at $44.86 a barrel at 0219 GMT, after falling 2.6 percent in the previous session to their lowest since August last year.

U.S. crude futures were up 6 cents at $42.59 a barrel. On Wednesday, they settled down at $42.53, after touching their lowest intraday level since August 2016.

Gold prices climbed on Thursday as an easing U.S. dollar flattened U.S. Treasury yields to their lowest in nearly a decade.   

In the latest news, Egypt's budget for the next 12 months will include a 75 billion Egyptian pound ($4.17 billion) social spending package, the finance ministry said on Wednesday, a day after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced measures to ease the pain of austerity for low-income Egyptians.

Morocco has pushed back its planned local sukuk issue to September so it can be in coordination with other Islamic finance measures, Finance Minister Mohammed Boussaid told Reuters on Wednesday.

Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Kikuo Iwata on Thursday dismissed the need to raise interest rates any time soon, stressing that the economy still needs support from "powerful" monetary easing with inflation distant from the central bank's 2 percent target.

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© Trading Middle East 2017