Kuwait outperforms in mixed region

Dubai : Rises in second-tier speculative stocks boosted Kuwait yesterday, while Qatar’s stock market rose as local institutional investors chased shares left behind in the bourse’s latest rally.

The Qatari index climbed 0.8 per cent as real estate firm Ezdan Holding, which had been trading near two-month lows, surged 3.9pc. Gulf Warehousing added 1.4pc.

Industries Qatar rose in early trade but closed flat after reporting annual net profit of 3.32 billion riyals ($912 million), up from 2.96bn riyals in 2016, and lifting its proposed annual cash dividend back to 5 riyals per share from 4 riyals.

Exchange data showed local institutional investors were once again net buyers of Qatari stocks by a considerable margin.

Kuwait’s broad index surged 1.6pc as speculative stocks such as Real Estate Asset Management Co, which soared 20pc, and Human Soft, which added 9.8pc. The index of 15 blue chips posted a much smaller rise of only 0.3pc.

Saudi Arabia’s index edged up 0.1pc as telecommunications firm Mobily plunged 7.1pc after the company reported its fourth-quarter net loss more than doubled from a year earlier to 181.7m riyals ($48.45m) on declining customer numbers. The loss was in line with analysts’ estimates.

In Dubai, the index fell 0.2pc as GFH Financial slipped 2.2pc after reporting annual net profit roughly halved and that its board cut the proposed annual cash dividend to 8.7pc from 10pc for 2016. But builder Arabtec added 2.9pc after swinging to an annual net profit of 123.1m dirhams ($33.5m) from a year-earlier loss of 3.41bn dirhams, roughly in line with analysts’ expectations.

Courier firm Aramex rose 2.3pc to 4.50 dirhams but came well off the day’s high after failing a test of technical resistance at its January peak of 4.55 dirhams.

It had jumped 7.3pc on Tuesday after reporting a 25pc rise in fourth-quarter net profit to 165m dirhams ($45.0m), beating SICO Bahrain’s estimate of 115m dirhams.