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July 8, 2018
Saudi and Kuwait markets ride the MSCI inclusion wave
According to our recently released Monthly Market Review for the month of June, GCC Stock Markets continued to post positive results, marking another positive month. The S&P GCC index was up 1.1% for the month and is now up 9.9% for the year, making it as one of the best performing regions in the world. Both MSCI EM and MSCI World were negative for the month. MSCI EM shed 4.6%, while, MSCI World lost 0.2%. The performance of S&P GCC index was...
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June 20, 2018
What’s fuelling appetite for Gulf bond issues?
This article was originally published in Argaam The bond market in the GCC region saw bond issuances to the tune of USD 70 bn, an all-time high issued amount in the year 2017 (https://www.thenational.ae/business/markets/strong-appetite-for-gcc-credit-forecast-for-2018-1.699843) The first quarter of 2018 has already seen issuances worth USD 16.8 bn, mostly by Oman (39% approx.) and Qatar National Bank (22% approx.). Oman has managed to sell its largest ever sovereign bond worth USD 6.5 bn in face of multiple downgrades in credit ratings...
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June 6, 2018
Establishing GCC Yield Curve – More Important now than ever!
A number of GCC corporates have been active in the debt markets, especially in the recent past, as the bank lending had been constrained while the financial environment offered money at attractive lower interest rates. Considering the surge in issuances and the need for development of domestic debt market many have been advocating for the need to establish a domestic sovereign yield curve that shall help the GCC companies to raise funds at a cheaper rate. Presence of sovereign yields...
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May 6, 2018
Why GCC Corporates have shunned the Sukuk market
This article was first published in Islamic Finance news Volume 15 Issue 18 dated the 1st May 2018. The sukuk segment of the Islamic financial industry, witnessed a lot of activity in 2017. There was a global sale of nearly USD 100 bn in sukuk which increased the amount raised by 40% from 2016 as there was sustained growth in the GCC region along with the continuation in non-Islamic markets like U.K and Australia and entry by new markets like Nigeria....
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April 19, 2018
Does Index Inclusion in FTSE, MSCI answer Kuwait, Saudi liquidity needs?
This Article was originally published in AMEinfo. ‘Index inclusion’ is perceived as a landmark event in the capital market history and the recent news of Kuwait upgrade to FTSE Emerging Market (EM) Index & possible inclusion of Saudi Arabia into MSCI EM Index has attracted significant attention and generated much fanfare. The act of market indices being included or successfully upgraded from one category to another is often an outcome of series of reforms that results in establishment of a...
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January 17, 2018
Debt Management Offices in GCC – A great institutional step
GCC governments have been active in setting up Debt Management Offices (DMO) in order to better understand and service their debt obligations. Hitherto, the role of issuing debt, servicing them and repaying them were all taken care of by the respective central banks. While that might have worked when the debt were minimal, a specialist DMO is required in order to manage them by establishing a separate, independent entity that is in charge of the debt management to avoid the...
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December 10, 2017
Financial Risk Management – Challenges before Businesses
This article was originally published in The Global Analyst November 2017 issue. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it-George Santayana... There is not one year that passes by without any crisis. Some are big and tectonic in nature (like the Global financial crisis in 2008) while others have a limited but powerful impact like Asian Financial crisis. When macro crisis hits the economy, it is natural that companies risk management systems are tested to the core....
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August 6, 2017
Is GCC a good place to hunt for yield?
Sizable issuances The emergence of GCC bond markets have been a fallout of the low oil prices and decline in foreign reserves, which has forced the regional governments to look for alternative routes to fund their diversification plans. Recently, debt issuances has been an important avenue for fund raising activities of the government. Out of the USD 38.5Bn that has been raised in the Middle East region since the beginning of 2017, 61% has come from the GCC countries. Saudi...
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August 3, 2017
Oil price recovery contributes to the regional markets’ rally in July
Value traded in July reflected the positive sentiments in the market, with volume traded increasing by 8% while the turnover in the market increased by 10%. All MENA markets, barring Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Egypt, witnessed gain in liquidity. Kuwait and Bahrain bourses evidenced 89% and 52% increase in value traded. The increase in liquidity attributed to the base-effect, especially due to poor trading activity in the previous month of Ramadan. In terms of valuation, P/E of Morocco (20.1x), Saudi...
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July 16, 2017
Home bias among GCC Funds – Preference for Domestic Stocks in Regional Funds
Institutional constraints such as barriers to invest across boundaries, limitations on repatriation of investment income, varying corporate governance standards, higher transaction costs and currency risk have been put forth as possible reasons. Interestingly, closer to home regional mutual funds in GCC markets suffer from home bias as well, despite the region being largely homogenous and frictional costs to invest across the region are largely non-existent. The primary goal of a fund manager is to maximize returns while minimizing risk. However,...