Business

Tadawul Leads Gulf Rally as Oil Prices Recover

Samar

Stock markets in the Gulf states made a strong rebound in opening trade Tuesday. This was led by Tadawul (the Saudi bourse) which jumped 5.6%, as oil prices bounced after heavy losses.

Energy giant Aramco, which dominates the Saudi Tadawul market, gained 5.5%.

Dubai Financial Market surged 5.5% while its sister Abu Dhabi market rose 4.2%, partly reversing steep declines.

Boursa Kuwait, where trading on its premier index was suspended for two days due to huge losses, rallied 6.6% and the Qatar stock market rose 3.0%.

The small bourses of Bahrain and Oman rose 1.2% and 0.2% respectively.

All the Gulf stock markets sustained heavy losses in the past two days, dropping to multi-year lows after oil producers failed to reach an agreement on output cuts in an impasse that sent oil prices crashing.

After Russia rejected calls from oil-exporting cartel OPEC for deeper output cuts. This is to combat a coronavirus-fuelled slump in demand. Riyadh also drove through massive price cuts in a bid to win market share.

As the confrontation flared; oil prices posted the single biggest one-day loss in three decades on Monday with Brent crude sliding to $33 a barrel.

But as Brent gained more than 7.0% to around $37 a barrel on Tuesday; energy and global stocks also rebounded in Asian trade. This comes a day after global equities suffered their biggest losses in more than a decade.