By: Mahmoud Gamal

Mubasher: There are six factors that may weigh on the GCC stock markets, pushing them towards further turbulence over the coming period, analysts told Mubasher.

However, the announcement of listed-firms annual financial results and cash dividend distributions will help eliminate investor concerns and will impact the markets positively, they said.

By the end of Sunday’s trading session, most of the GCC bourses fell in line with the disclosure of some below-expectations financial results.

Below-expectation results

Economist Mohamed Al-Maimouni said that Almarai Co’s quarterly financial results were below-expectation, which let investors down and dented the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

Almarai’s stock closed yesterday’s trading session 6% down after recording a 28% year-on-year decline for the fourth quarter of 2018.

As Tadawul closed Sunday in red territory, investors in the surrounding stock markets become cautious and postponed their decisions, Al-Maimouni added.

The banking sector’s stocks have seen profit-taking, mainly Al Rajhi Bank and Samba Financial Group that posted robust profits last week, he highlighted.

The economist projected that traders will remain cautious in Monday’s trading session while monitoring the performance of the US stock market, as well as the global oil prices.

Investors’ decisions

For his part, head of asset management at MENACORP Tariq Qaqish said that traders in the GCC markets, mainly in the UAE, are closely watching the performance of global stocks that are remarkably impacting the investors’ decisions.

Investors are concerned over the US stocks’ trend this week amid the political tension in the US that negatively impact the decisions of traders in the GCC bourses, Qaqish indicated.

Investors’ concerns are also growing after Air Arabia, the UAE's only listed airline, recently filed a lawsuit against Abraaj Capital, he pointed out.

Many traders in the region are currently holding off their investment plans until some real estate companies report their financial results, he said.

Attractive stocks

Moreover, economist and technical analyst Ibrahim Al-Failakawi said that the continuous announcements of financial results and dividend payments will ease the current fears of investors in the GCC stock markets.

The UAE stocks and some GCC-listed stocks have seen a wave of declines at the end of 2018 that pushed them to low levels, making them attractive for purchase, Al-Failakawi explained.

He noted that the current attractive sectors are the investment and telecommunication stocks that are expected to post solid financial results.

Translated by: Mai Ezz El-Din