(Reuters) – Qatar’s stock market ended higher on Sunday in response to Friday’s rise in oil prices, while the Saudi index finished flat.
Oil prices – a key catalyst for the Gulf’s financial markets – rose nearly 2% on Friday to record a fourth consecutive weekly gain, buoyed by growing evidence of supply shortages in the coming months and rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine that could further hit supplies.
Russia hit Ukrainian food export facilities for a fourth day in a row on Friday and practised seizing ships in the Black Sea, in an escalation of tensions in the region since Moscow’s withdrawal this week from a U.N.-brokered safe sea corridor agreement.
In Qatar, the key stock index (.QSI) gained 0.5%, rising for an eighth consecutive session, led by a 10% surge in Barwa Real Estate Co (BRES.QA).
Last week, the real estate firm agreed to sell two land plots in Lusail area for 6.36 billion riyals ($1.75 billion).
Saudi Arabia’s benchmark index (.TASI), which hit an eight-month high last week, closed flat.
The kingdom on Friday said it will join a global hydrogen trade forum to be launched by the Clean Energy Ministerial, a global group formed to promote clean energy policy.
Outside the Gulf, Egypt’s blue-chip index (.EGX30) eased 0.2% on Sunday, hit by a 1.1% fall in tobacco monopoly Easter Company.
A Reuters poll showed Egypt’s economic growth is expected to be slower than previously forecast, while inflation may stay higher and the Egyptian pound may weaken a little more than previous projections.
