• August 6, 2015

    أسواق الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا: ماذا حدث في يوليو؟

    The blazing summer heat encouraged the yearly migration of GCC tourists to cooler locations. These past few years this “summer hibernation” has coincided with the holy month of Ramadan, which acts as a double whammy for stock markets in the region. And if that wasn’t enough, the lifting of Iran sanctions sent oil prices tumbling down, with IPE Brent falling 17.9% to USD 52 in July, and the sell-off in the Chinese markets had a pronounced impact in the region....

  • July 1, 2015

    هل تستطيع الرياض منافسة دبي كمركز مالي؟

    Dubai is a global business city located in the UAE with a population of 2.1 million and a GDP per capita based on PPP of USD 65,000. In contrast, Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia, boasts of a population of 6 million and a GDP per capita based on PPP of USD 54,000. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are oil rich countries. In order to reduce their dependency on oil revenue the two countries are diversifying into non-oil...

  • May 27, 2015

    أبحاث حقوق الملكية الخليجية: الأسئلة الرئيسية

    Introduction It’s time for GCC economies to embrace equity research. We will tell you why. Let’s begin by looking at how these markets have performed in 2014.br/> الدولة Index Performance 2014 UAE Dubai’s DFM Index + 11.99% UAE Abu Dhabi Stock Market Index +  5.56% Saudi Arabia TADAWUL All Share Index -   3.16% Qatar QE All Share Index + 18.36% Kuwait KWSE Weighted Index -    3.09% Oman MSM Index -    7.70% Bahrain BSE Index + 14.23% Source: Reuters, Markaz Research Among...

  • March 15, 2015

    البورصة الموحدة لدول مجلس التعاون الخليجي

    Several factors argue for the case for a unified stock exchange in the GCC region including increased trade volumes, improved liquidity and lower trading costs on back of economies of scale (MENA Asset Management السياسة Perspectives, Markaz Research) . However, the first step towards such unification of stock exchanges requires the union of currencies and harmonizing of monetary operations undertaken by the GCC central banks. Initially proposed in the early 2000 after the successful adoption of the Euro, the approval...

  • January 18, 2015

    الوقوع معًا أو الصعود وحيدًا

    This is a strange pair of two markets, Saudi Arabia and India. One is a rich oil producer sitting on huge amount of wealth and is 7 times richer than India on a per capita basis. Another is a growing emerging market three times the size of Saudi Arabia. On the 31st of January 2005 the TASI index was at a modest 8,231 points while the SENSEX was at its modest 6,555 points. Since that date the TASI index peaked...

  • April 20, 2014

    ما هي أهمية السيولة؟ بعض مقتطفات البحث

    Liquidity is at the backbone of any market development and GCC stock markets are no exception. Strong oil price backed wealth effect coupled with retail nature of the market triggering speculative activity contributed to very robust liquidity levels in the past, especially before the financial crisis. Liquidity is generally measured as total value traded and is expressed as a % of total market capitalization to arrive at the velocity. A high velocity may indicate that liquidity is running ahead of...

  • August 13, 2012

    الامتناع عن توصية البيع في دول مجلس التعاون الخليجي!

    We have been regularly monitoring analysts’ recommendations in GCC and notice a weird trend. Most of the calls are either buy or hold. Look at the table below: Table 1- Recommendations Vs the S&P GCC Since 2010, analysts scream either a buy or hold nearly 90% of the time. In the 2.5 years of study, only during 2H 2010 the market turned reasonably positive validating the scream. In all the other cases, the market movement was totally in contrast to...