Benchmark indices of Arab stock exchanges retreated in the trading week between March 9 and March 14. Both markets in the United Arab Emirates shed around 150 points between the week’s first opening and last close, translating into a 3 percent softening for the Abu Dhabi Exchange (ADX) and around 4 percent for the Dubai Financial Market (DFM). This scaled the year-to-date gains for DFM and ADX back to 19.55 and 12 percent, respectively. Where the ADX and DFM displayed index losses in the first part of the trading week, the Gulf Cooperation Council’s northern pair, Bourse Bahrain (BB) and Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE), gained a bit each. The BB Index kept the pace and closed the week with a fractional gain of all of a point-and-a-half, or 0.4 percent. The KSE benchmark dropped 53 points, or 0.7 percent. [pullquote] Saudi’s 1.5 percent gain was the best in the Gulf
