Upward arrows in the Gulf

ENAR

Investor confidence is a touchy life form that can wither from all sorts of things: to name but a few, jitters can be caused in any market by surprise board announcements, an absence of board announcements, too many rumors, too little transparency, too much volatility in tandem with too little liquidity, and even the reverse of that. But strangely, in the year’s 28th week, Gulf investors seem to have been inoculated against all confidence-eating bugs. Summer heat For the second week running, upward arrows dominated the weekly performance sheets of benchmark indices in the Middle East and North Africa. The top riser was the Qatar Exchange, followed by the Dubai Financial Market. Index gains on both bourses slowed down only slightly when compared with the improvements achieved in week 27, but the advancements made so far in July must be regarded in context of the index devastations seen in June on