Gulf markets fall as US travel ban hits global sentiment

Stock markets in the Middle East fell yesterday as the travel curbs ordered by US President Donald Trump hit sentiment towards equities globally.
Middle Eastern bourses most exposed to foreign fund flows underperformed the region.
Egypt’s blue-chip index dropped 2.0% as foreign funds were net sellers of shares, bourse data showed.
It was one of only a few days of foreign net selling since the Egyptian pound was floated on November 3.
Fund managers believe that in the worst case, flows of US trade, aid and investment could be hit by Trump’s policies.
Companies favoured by foreign funds were hit hard yesterday with investment firm EFG Hermes down 5.4%.
In the Gulf, Dubai’s index fell 1.0% as Emaar Properties lost 1.1%.
Telecommunications firm du outperformed, falling only 0.3%, after du’s parent, Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Co, said it had acquired a licence to operate Virgin Mobile-branded services in the UAE.
Its Abu Dhabi-listed competitor, Etisalat, fell 1.9% and Abu Dhabi’s index lost 0.9%.
Kuwait’s index closed 0.1% lower after falling sharply in intra-day trade. Gulf Bank dropped 5.6%.
The market is up 19% from the start of the year in very heavy trade, partly because Pakistan will leave MSCI’s frontier market index in May, increasing Kuwait’s weighting.
Stocks were also boosted in anticipation of a briefing by government ministers on economic development plans on Monday night.
But the ministers announced very little in the way of new policy initiatives, efforts to accelerate economic development or policies to boost economic growth. With Kuwaiti stocks richly valued relative to the rest of the region, a monthly Reuters poll of Middle East fund managers, published yesterday, found them deeply split on Kuwait’s stock market, with 38% expecting to raise their allocations there in the next three months and 38% expecting to reduce them.
In Riyadh, the index fell 0.4%.
All but two of the 12 banking shares declined; Alawwal Bank lost 1.3%. Petrochemical shares were also weak with nearly two-thirds of listed producers trading lower.
But Nama Chemicals, which has been rising strongly since last week on news of its corporate recovery plan, jumped a further 4.2%.
Elsewhere in the Gulf, Oman’s index edged up 0.4% to 5,776 points, while Bahrain’s index was flat at 1,304 points.