The sideways stumble

The MENA’s benchmark indices kept a steady direction in the 37th week of the year, generally continuing the trend of the previous week. The region’s largest market, Riyadh’s Tadawul, continued to move sideways at an elevated level reached by a six week rally between July 21 and the start of September. The bourses of Oman, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Kuwait advanced this week at paces ranging from 0.9 to 0.5 percent. Bahrain Bourse dropped a tad but the shrinkage was less than in the two previous weeks, allowing the arrow to shift from down to flat. In North Africa, the Tunindex’s slide of three weeks actually accelerated a bit but the MASI rose for the third consecutive week, advancing the Casablanca Exchange to the highest index reading in two years. It is worth recalling, however, that the Moroccan exchange is still over 3,000 index points from peaks reached in early