Index heavyweights Qatar International Islamic Bank and Qatar Islamic Bank declined 1.3% and 0.9%, respectively. Qatar's Commercial Bank dropped 3.8% and Doha Bank slumped 10%. "The Qatari stock market maintained its downtrend following the negative performance in natural gas markets," said Fadi Reyad, chief market analyst at CAPEX.com MENA. The benchmark index in Saudi Arabia dropped 0.8%, weighed down by losses in most sectors, led by banking and energy stocks.
Shares of Alinma Bank declined 4.3% after the bank reported 32.8% growth in annual net profit to 3.60 billion riyals ($959.3 million) that missed analysts' estimate of 3.72 billion riyals. The world's largest Islamic bank by assets, Al Rajhi Bank , fell 0.7% and Dr Sulaiman Al Habib Medical declined 3.3%. Saudi oil giant Aramco lost 0.9%. Oil prices - a key contributor to Gulf economies - fell on Thursday as looming sanctions on Russian oil products added uncertainty over supply, with Brent crude down 0.51% at $82.40 a barrel by 1330 GMT.
Dubai's benchmark index closed up 0.5%, lifted by gains in banking, utilities and industry sectors stocks. Dubai's biggest lender Emirates NBD added 0.4% and Emirates Central Cooling Systems rose 2%.
Commercial Bank Of Dubai jumped 8.1% after it
reported a 26% jump in full-year net profit on Wednesday, helped
by higher net interest income and solid operating income.
In Abu Dhabi, the index ended up 0.1%, rising for
a fourth straight session, helped by a 3% gain in National
Marine Dredging after the firm posted a 30% increase
in annual net profit to 1.30 billion dirhams ($353.9 million).
The MENA region's largest producer of nitrogen fertilisers,
Fertiglobe , rose 2.2%.
Outside the Gulf, Egypt's blue-chip index ended
0.9% lower, falling for a fourth session with almost all its
constituent stocks in the red.
Fawry banking and El Sewedy Electric dropped 3.6% and 6% respectively.
SAUDI ARABIA fell 0.8% to 10,702
QATAR dropped 0.94% to 10,698
EGYPT lost 0.9% to 16,256
BAHRAIN ended flat at 1,921
OMAN added 0.2% to 4,720
KUWAIT added 0.4 at 8,160
ABU DHABI rose 0.1% to 9,858
DUBAI added 0.5 at 3,365
($1 = 3.6729 UAE dirham)
(Reporting by Md Manzer Hussain
Editing by Mark Potter)
