Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) rose on Thursday after its quarterly profit met expectations, lifting Egypt's broader index, while other Middle East markets were mixed in subdued trade. Dubai resumed its rally ahead of an imminent Dubai World debt offer. Qatar was flat at 7,315 points after Wednesday's surge while Abu Dhabi and Kuwait fell in the absence of any new catalysts. Kuwait measure fell 0.03 percent to 7,414 points. OCI climbed 4.4 percent. Its fourth-quarter net profit jumped 42 percent compared with a year earlier. Dubai index rose 0.5 percent to 1,726 points. Abu Dhabi benchmark fell 0.6 percent to 2,832 points. Oman benchmark rose 0.1 percent to 6,634 points. Bahrain index climbed up 1.1 percent to 1,531 points. Egypt index climbed 0.8 percent to 6,610 points. “The results are within expectations, there are no surprises,” said Alia Khalil of Pharos. “May be locals had expected a bit of a surprise.” Dubai's index rose 0.5 percent as investors took advantage of Wednesday's slump to buy at lower prices. “I believe that the UAE markets are still in “catch-up” mode to the rest of the regional markets,” said Mohammed Yasin, Shuaa Securities chief executive. “The formal announcement of the Dubai World restructuring plan, if it comes in line with what was said, will remove a big worry that has shadowed the UAE markets since November 2009, and will allow the normal fundamentals of the UAE listed companies to decide the movement of the market.” On Wednesday, a media report said Dubai World would offer banks a single proposal to repay in full the $26 billion debt it is renegotiating. “We're seeing a leakage of news - we can't say whether this is true or not, but the market is looking for any drop of information to help it decide the future direction,” said Hashem Montasser, EFG-Hermes managing director and head of regional asset management. Abu Dhabi National Energy Co (Taqa) rose 0.8 percent after saying it planned to spend $1.4 billion on projects this year, bucking a negative trend on the UAE capital's bourse, which fell for a fourth day. Qatar's index ended unchanged as banks-led euphoria waned. On Tuesday, the central bank said banks would soon be allowed to trade stocks, helping the index make its largest gain since early December a day later. Investors have bet banks' return to the buy side will boost market liquidity and with it valuations. “The Qatar market was probably looking for a catalyst,” said Montasser. “Stocks were over-sold and the market has lagged other regional markets for the past year, even though the top-down picture is very good and most Qatar companies are seen increasing earnings.” Qatar National Bank edged higher to be up 12 percent this week and Commercial Bank of Qatar added 0.9 percent. “Each bank has a cap of 150 million riyals, so we're talking about 1.2 billion riyals in total potentially coming into the market, so it all depends on how much of this has been deployed,” said Mohamed Abu Ghoush, head of equities brokerage at Ahli Bank. “The market is down a few points - it's chump change on today's volumes,” said a Kuwait-based analyst who asked not be identified. “It's just retail selling, there's nothing fundamentally wrong.”
