As regional stock markets wound their way through first-quarter earnings announcements, Gulf markets tended to dip in the early part of week 16 and index gains were reserved for the second half of the week in five of the seven stock exchanges of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The Gulf The Saudi, Qatari, Bahraini and both exchanges in the United Arab Emirates followed this pattern but with the distinction that both Emirati bourses ended the week with net drops while the QE Index was the Gulf’s significant gainer – on Thursday temporarily rising to a new post 2005 high. The Muscat Securities Market’s MSM 30 moved steadier than these five indices and achieved its 0.5 percent weekly net gain in tiny increments. The Kuwaiti market on the other hand dropped 0.9 percent on Thursday and tied with the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) for the week’s biggest percentage loss, at 1.6 percent
