Dubai's index ended the year up more than 9%, outperforming other major Gulf markets, while Kuwait led the region with a 32% gain and Oman fell for a third year in a row.

Dubai dropped 0.2% on Tuesday as Dubai Islamic Bank lost 0.7% and Emirates NBD slipped 0.4%, but it closed 9.3% up over the year, despite slumping real estate prices.

Saudi Arabia rose 0.5%, bringing its annual gains to 7.2%. Riyad Bank added 2% on Tuesday, while Aramco rose 0.3%, at 35.3 riyals.

Oil giant Aramco commenced trading on Dec. 11 after a long-awaited market listing, surging 10% from the initial public offering price of 32 riyals ($8.53). The increase helped the company close in on the $2 trillion valuation long sought by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Aramco raised $25.6 billion on Dec. 5 through the IPO. The flotation propelled the Riyadh bourse into the world's top ten by value of listed companies.

In mid-September, oil prices surged by as much as 19% before coming off peaks, after an attack on the kingdom that shut 5% of global crude output. The intraday jump was the biggest surge since the 1991 Gulf War.

Kuwait's blue-chip index advanced 32.4% in 2019, making it the best-performing stock market for the year.

Interest in Kuwait grew following MSCI's decision to move Kuwaiti equities into its main emerging market index in 2020. Vrajesh Bhandari, senior portfolio manager at Al Mal Capital, said they expect the index to be well supported until the move.

Egypt's index increased 7.1% in 2019. On Tuesday, Commercial International Bank edged up 0.2%.

Qatar's index gained 1% for the year, after the rally last year on account of passive flows as companies raised limits on foreign ownership of their shares.

"It was expected that the market would underperform in 2019 and the flat show is not surprising," said Vrajesh.

n the other hand, Oman's index had another bad year leaving it down 7.9% for all of 2019, close to 15-year lows.

 

($1 = 3.7508 riyals)

(Reporting by Ateeq Shariff in Bengaluru; editing by Philippa Fletcher) ((AteeqUr.Shariff@thomsonreuters.com; +918067497129;))