Gulf stock markets inch down after oil pulls back

Gulf stock markets dropped early Thursday in the absence of fresh, positive news, and after oil prices pulled back slightly overnight.

Dubai’s index slipped 0.1 percent in the first hour. Shuaa Capital added a further 1.2 percent in active trade after jumping its 15 percent daily limit on Wednesday, but Union Properties fell 0.8 percent.

Abu Dhabi National Energy Co (TAQA) fell 2.2 percent after reporting a narrower fourth-quarter loss of 1.22 billion dirhams ($332.2 million) versus a net loss of 3.63 billion dirhams in the same period of 2014; it declined to pay an annual dividend for the third year in a row. The stock had jumped 12.2 percent on Wednesday ahead of the earnings news.

TAQA’s pull-back helped to depress Abu Dhabi’s index, which lost 0.5 percent. Waha Capital plunged 10 percent as it went ex-dividend.

Qatar dipped 0.3 percent as Gulf Warehousing fell 0.8 percent. It soared last week when the Qatar Central Securities Depository raised the maximum foreign ownership percentage for its shares to 49 percent of capital, but pulled back this week as no rapid, major increase in actual foreign ownership, now at 25.6 percent, materialised.

Source: Reuters