Most of loss was in Saudi bourse while Syria was only gainer
A global financial storm continued to put pressure on Arab stock markets and depressed them by more than $27 billion in the first nine days of August, bringing the total loss year to date to around $78 billion, official data showed on Thursday.
Saudi Arabia's Tadawul, by far the largest and most speculative regional stock exchange, emerged as the main victim of the turmoil as it dipped by nearly $15 billion in the first 10 days of August, showed the figures by the Abu Dhabi-based Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), a key Arab League financial organization.
From about $913.3 billion at the end of July, the combined market capitalization of 14 official Arab capital markets slumped to nearly $885.8 billion on August 10, a decline of around $27.5 billion and a daily average fall of nearly $four billion on account of seven working days in most regional bourses.
The report showed Abu Dhabi declined by around $220 million to 69.8 billion while Dubai dropped by nearly $780 million in the same period.
Kuwait's market capitalization dipped by around $1.6 billion to $100 billion while Qatar lost nearly $three billion to close at $119.8 billion on August 10.
Bahrain, the smallest bourse in the Gulf, receded by around $300 million to nearly $18.3 billion while Oman slumped by $500 million to $18.7 billion.
Outside the Gulf, Egypt's bourse shrank by around $four billion to $63.6 billion and Morocco by nearly $one billion to $59.8 billion. There was also a slight drop in other Arab markets, including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia and Palestine.
The decline in August brought the total loss in Arab markets to nearly $78 billion since the start of 2011, when their capitalization stood at $953.5 billion.
Saudi Arabia alone dipped by nearly $18 billion, nearly a quarter of the total Arab market loss so far this year.
© Emirates 24|7 2011
