MENA stocks tips

With the European sovereign debt crisis taking center stage last month, the United States economy still in tatters and uprisings continuing in parts of the Middle East, uncertainty prevailed in the markets. Surrounded by such volatility, what is a Middle Eastern investor to do? For an expert opinion on how to navigate the markets, Executive spoke to Ammar Bakheet, head of asset management at Audi Bank, and Khaled Zeidan, general manager at MedSecurities, a BankMed subsidiary. The scoop Bakheet remains very conservative in his approach, as he believes that the market turbulence will persist at least until the end of the year. However, he sees significant opportunities in the current environment and recommends buying high quality, fixed-income instruments rated triple B or better, and big blue chip companies with high dividend yields. Zeidan also favors fixed-income and equities; he believes equities are very cheap and advises to buy defensive names