Saudi leads Gulf as oil prices rebound

Stock markets in the energy-rich Gulf states made a strong rebound in opening trade Tuesday, led by the Saudi bourse which jumped 5.6 percent, as oil prices bounced after heavy losses.

After Russia rejected calls from oil-exporting cartel OPEC, which includes Saudi Arabia, for deeper output cuts to combat a coronavirus-fuelled slump in demand, Riyadh drove through massive price cuts in a bid to win market share. As the confrontation flared, oil prices — the mainstay of public revenues in the Gulf states — 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 percent to around $37 a barrel on Tuesday, energy and global stocks also rebounded in Asian trade, a day after global equities suffered their biggest losses in more than a decade.

Energy giant Aramco, which dominates the Saudi Tadawul market, gained 5.5 percent after a series of sessions in the red where it tumbled below the price where it listed last December. Dubai Financial Market surged 5.5 percent while its sister Abu Dhabi market rose 4.2 percent, partly reversing steep declines.

Boursa Kuwait, where trading on its premier index was suspended for two days due to huge losses, rallied 6.6 percent and the Qatar stock market rose 3.0 percent. The small bourses of Bahrain and Oman rose 1.2 percent and 0.2 percent 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.

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