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29 March 2024

Arab stocks lost $24bn in February

Picture used for illustrative purposes only. (FILE)

Published
By Staff

Arab stock markets dipped by nearly $24 billion through February as turmoil across the region continued to put downward pressure on bourses and unsettle investors already unnerved by persistent economic uncertainties.

After they were the star performers in January, the bourse of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar surprisingly accounted for the bulk of this month’s loss as Dubai edged down slightly and Abu Dhabi gained.

From around $954 billion at the end of January, the combined market capitalization of the Arab region’s 14 official bourses slumped to nearly $930 billion on Thursday, a loss of around $24 billion.

The decline brought to nearly $56 billion the total loss suffered by the Arab bourses since the start of 2010, according to the Abu Dhabi-based Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), which tracks regional stock exchanges.

Saudi Arabia, which has the largest and busiest bourse in the Middle East, emerged as the main victim along with Qatar and Kuwait.

From around $340.3 billion at the end of January, the market capitalization of the Saudi Tadawul bourse dipped to $334.6 billion on Thursday.

Qatar’s bourse plunged to $112.7 billion from $120.4 billion while Kuwait shrank to around $116.6 billion from $124.7 billion.

Dubai’s bourse, one of the busiest in the region, slipped slightly to around $52.5 billion from $53 billion while Abu Dhabi rebounded to nearly $69 billion from $67.8 billion after a small decline in January.

Oman’s bourse edged down to $21.3 billion from $21.8 billion while Bahrain’s market edged up to $20.8 billion from $20.5 billion despite recent unrest.

Outside the oil-rich Gulf , Egypt whose market has been closed most of the time, remained at $71.4 billion. Morocco\s Casablanca bourse, another major market outside the Gulf, dropped to around $67.3 billon from $68.5 billon.

Jordan’s Amman bourse fell to about $29.3 billion from $30.8 billion and Lebanon to $17.6 billion from $18.2 billion.

Syria’s Damascus bourse, which has just been included in the AMF data, slipped to around $three billion from $3.1 billion. Tunisia, where the spark of Middle East unrest began in January, declined slightly to $10 billion from $10.3 billion.

The figures showed the Palestinian bourse in the occupied territories also retreated slightly to around $3.8 billion from $3.9 billion.