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Gulf stocks hit by US recession fears

Gulf stocks declined in Sunday’s trading on the back of the heavy losses suffered in US markets last week, with Emaar Properties, telecom operators and regional banks leading the drop.

Emaar, the largest publicly traded stock in the Middle East, fell 2.4% to close at 12 dirhams per share, while Etisalat dropped to new multi-week lows, closing down 1.2% at 24.5 dirhams.
The fall in two of the UAE's leading stocks weighed on the Emirates two exchanges, with Dubai's main index shedding 1.4% to close at 5,752.02, and Abu Dhabi's slipping 0.82% to 4,813.55 points.

Samba Financial Group led the decline on the Saudi bourse, plummeted 4.17%, while Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) finished down 0.42%.

Saudi's main index, the worst performing market this year, fell for a third straight trading day, shedding 0.85% at 9,834.41 points.

Oman’s main index declined 1.5% on the back of losses posted by Bank Muscat, which dropped 2.61%, and telecom Omantel, which shed 1.87%.

Shares of Qatari telecom Qtel and Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) also fell, down 2.1% and 0.45% respectively, helping bring down Qatar's main index 0.39% to 10,397.02 points.

Not all Gulf markets dropped. Kuwait and Bahrain indexes both closed higher for the day, up 0.75% and 0.44% respectively.

Gains were paced in Bahrain by lender Ahli United and telecom Batelco, and in Kuwait by Gulf Bank of Kuwait and Commercial Bank of Kuwait.

Last week’s sell off in the US markets was triggered by the ongoing crisis in the financial sector and poor job figures.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index finished down 2.8% for the week, intensifying fears the US is now in a recession.

Markets across Asia responded to the poor performance in the US by sliding to new seven-month lows. Losses were lead by a decline in automakers and miners.

A weaker dollar means Asia’s largest automakers struggle to export to the US, while miners are particularly sensitive to possible retractions in demand for metal from the world’s largest economy.

Analysts have debated whether the emerging markets of the world have developed enough to have “decoupled” from the US economy.

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