Dubai
Stock markets in the oil-rich Gulf states plunged on Sunday over fears about the impact of the coronavirus, a market trend that also battered global bourses last week. All of the six equity markets operating on Sunday in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which were closed the previous two days for the Muslim weekend, were hit as oil prices dropped below $50 a barrel. Qatar’s bourse was closed for a holiday. The Saudi bourse, the region’s largest and one of the world’s top ten equity markets, was down 3.6 percent an hour before the close. But the region’s slide was led by the Kuwait Boursa, where the All-Share Index fell 10 percent, triggering its automatic closure. Kuwait’s bourse was closed for most of last week for national holidays. The Dubai Financial Market dipped 4.5 percent while its sister market in Abu Dhabi was down 3.6 percent at the close of trading. Bahrain’s bourse ended 3.4 percent down and the Muscat Securities Market in Oman finished down 1.2 percent. “GCC equities witnessed a downfall as panic over coronavirus spread across the region,” M.R. Raghu, head of research at Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz), told AFP. “Initial expectations that the outbreak would be contained within China have proved elusive, as a large number of international cases continue to be reported,” he said. At least 115 cases of the coronavirus have been reported by the Gulf states so far, with the majority of infections among people returning from pilgrimages to Iran. Global stocks slumped on Friday, marking the largest weekly drop since the 2008 global financial crisis, as concerns grew that the spread of the virus could wreak havoc on the world economy. Crude oil prices tumbled as well and analysts said central banks, led by the US Federal Reserve, might have to shift into crisis-resolution mode with urgent interest rate cuts. —AFP
