Gulf markets lose $50 billion in the latest rout

[LRE]

Gulf markets lose $50 billion in the latest rout

Agencies
Published: October 08, 2008, 17:25

Dubai: Arab stock markets came crashing down for the fourth day on Wednesday over fears about the impact of global financial crisis.

The seven stock markets in the Gulf lost more than 50 billion dollars of capitalisation on Wednesday, bringing their total fall in value this week to around 200 billion dollars. Their value now stands at 750 billion dollars.

Most regional markets closed before the announcement by the world's major central banks of coordinated interest rate cuts.

Stocks in Saudi Arabia - the largest bourse in the Middle East - slumped by more than eight per cent, trading below the 6,000-point mark for the first time in more than 52 months.

One hour before close on the last day of the trading week, the Tadawul All-Shares Index was at 5,754.63 points, its lowest level since July 2004.

The slide came despite assurances by Mohammad Al Jasser, deputy governor of Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, the kingdom's central bank, that Riyadh faces no liquidity problems and is not exposed to the global financial crisis.

Egypt's key CASE-30 stock index sank 12.56 per cent to 5,156 points within a few minutes of the start of business, threatening to repeat Tuesday's 16.47 percent drop which took the index to a two-year low.

The CASE-30 has lost more than half its value in six months after almost doubling its level over the past four years to hit a high of 12,000 points in May.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange, the second largest in the Arab world, closed down 1.4 per cent at 11,472.00 points, recovering from early big losses after the central bank cut the benchmark lending rate by 1.25 percentage points to 4.5 percent. The Doha Securities Market Index finished down 8.77 per cent to 7,432.87 points, the biggest single-day decline in gas-rich Qatar's financial market in several years. It shed 20 per cent this week.

The Beirut Stock Exchange appeared to be less severely affected.

"There was a decline of about one per cent on Wednesday," Youssuf Sadek, deputy secretary general of the Beirut Stock Exchange, said after the markets closed.

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