Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia lead the Arab stock exchanges with gains of $125 billion

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

The Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange and the Saudi Stock Exchange led the gains of the Arab stock exchanges, after their market capitalisation gained more than $125 billion during last March's trading, according to the Arab Monetary Fund (IMF).

The monthly bulletin of the Arab Monetary Fund, which monitors the performance of 13 Arab stock exchanges, showed that the Abu Dhabi Securities Market's gains exceeded $55 billion, increasing its market capital from $685.8 billion at the end of February to $740.8 billion at the end of last March.

The bulletin indicated that the gains of the Saudi financial market exceeded $70.2 billion, raising its market capitalization from $2.59 trillion to $2.66 trillion, while the market capitalisation of the Dubai Financial Market reached $162.3 billion, and the Qatar Stock Exchange to $162.7 billion.

According to the bulletin, the market capitalisation of the Kuwait Stock Exchange amounted to about $147.5 billion, the Muscat Stock Exchange more than $62 billion, the Casablanca Stock Exchange $53.1 billion, the Egyptian Stock Exchange $33.9 billion, and the Amman Stock Exchange $26.5 billion.

The market value of the Beirut Stock Exchange reached $18.8 billion at the end of last March, the Tunis Stock Exchange reached $7.86 billion, the Palestine Stock Exchange reached $4.99 billion, the Damascus Stock Exchange reached $2.36 billion, and the Khartoum Stock Exchange reached $2.04 billion.

The report indicated that in terms of performance, the Arab stock exchanges recorded a divergence in their indicators, coinciding with the state of divergence recorded by the global financial markets, and some emerging markets affected by the turmoil in the financial sector, which resulted in the bankruptcy of some international banks, in addition to the recent decisions of the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.