Middle East Market Wrap 22 October: All Nine Markets Fall and Cairo Drops 3.41 Percent
Cairo’s EGX 30 fell 3.41 percent on Thursday, the deepest decline on a day when all nine Middle East markets closed lower. The Central Bank of Egypt’s average market rate for the dollar moved to 55.2576 pounds buying, about 1.7 percent weaker for the pound than Wednesday’s fixing, on our calculation. Riyadh’s Tadawul All Share lost 2.32 percent, a fourth straight decline. Brent crude traded 2.98 percent higher at 112.06 dollars a barrel at 13:07 GMT.
Cairo’s Stocks and Its Currency Slip Together
The EGX 30 closed at 51,052.26, down 1,802.69 points, ending a three-session rise. The fall was broad: 20 stocks rose against 190 that fell on the Egyptian Exchange’s own count, with 13 unchanged. The selling came alongside a sharply weaker official rate for the currency: the central bank’s average market series, dated today, put the dollar at 55.2576 pounds buying and 55.3576 selling, from 54.3377 and 54.4377 at Wednesday’s fixing; against the 18 October fixing of 53.4717 buying, the pound is about 3.2 percent weaker, on our calculation.
Riyadh Falls Hardest in the Gulf
The Tadawul All Share lost 2.32 percent to 9,695.86, its fourth straight decline, on the day’s widest breadth: 13 symbols rose against 255 that fell on the exchange’s own market summary, in 4.9 billion riyals of trade, with the exchange’s consumer services gauge down 4.18 percent and transportation down 3.67 percent. Kuwait’s All-Share eased 0.47 percent to 8,290.81, a seventh straight decline, with the Premier Market down 0.48 percent and the Main Market down 0.41 percent in 59.7 million dinars of trade across 23,801 trades. The MSX 30 lost 0.81 percent to 7,379.414, a sixth straight fall, on breadth of 13 rises against 41 falls and 32.3 million rials traded. Bahrain’s All Share closed at 1,851.61, down 0.32 percent on the bourse’s own figures, a seventh straight decline. Amman’s ASE Index fell 0.65 percent to 4,139.08 on our arithmetic, a third straight loss, with 25 gainers against 46 losers in 19.1 million dinars of trade. The QE Index slipped 0.37 percent to 8,611.10 on our arithmetic, giving back part of Wednesday’s gain, with QNB down 1.02 percent and Qatar Islamic Bank down 1.28 percent on the exchange’s ticker and turnover of 409.8 million riyals. Dubai’s DFM General fell 0.72 percent to 5,817.76 on the exchange’s own change, after a single day of gains, in 688.9 million dirhams of trade, and Abu Dhabi’s FTSE ADX General lost 0.71 percent to 9,702.15, a second straight decline, in 1.10 billion dirhams.
Shallowest falls
| Index | Close | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Bahrain All Share (Bahrain) | 1,851.61 | -0.32% |
| QE Index (Qatar) | 8,611.10 | -0.37% |
| Boursa Kuwait All-Share (Kuwait) | 8,290.81 | -0.47% |
| ASE Index (Jordan) | 4,139.08 | -0.65% |
| FTSE ADX General (Abu Dhabi) | 9,702.15 | -0.71% |
All nine indices closed lower, so the pair of tables splits today as the shallowest and the deepest falls, with the reason disclosed here. Closes of Thursday 22 October 2026 from the exchanges’ own pages, ranked against Wednesday’s closes as published; the Doha and Amman changes are our arithmetic, the Dubai and Bahrain changes the exchanges’ own. Run lengths count against our published closes.
Deepest falls
| Index | Close | Change |
|---|---|---|
| EGX 30 (Egypt) | 51,052.26 | -3.41% |
| Tadawul All Share (Saudi Arabia) | 9,695.86 | -2.32% |
| MSX 30 (Oman) | 7,379.414 | -0.81% |
| DFM General (Dubai) | 5,817.76 | -0.72% |
Deepest falls, same session and basis, ranked from the deepest.
Commodities and currencies
| Instrument | Level | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Gold, COMEX (Dec’26), dollars an ounce | 4,098.90 | -1.23% |
| Silver, COMEX (Dec’26), dollars an ounce | 55.96 | -3.04% |
| Brent Crude, ICE (Dec’26), dollars a barrel | 112.06 | +2.98% |
| WTI Crude, NYMEX (Dec’26), dollars a barrel | 99.63 | +2.55% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 101.78 | +0.00% |
| Euro/Dollar | 1.1202 | -0.27% |
| Sterling/Dollar | 1.3372 | -0.16% |
| Dollar/Yen | 157.10 | -0.65% |
Intraday quotes at 13:07 GMT, in fixed order; snapshots, not settlements. The commodity rows are measured against Wednesday’s settlements, the currency and dollar-index rows against the feed’s previous reference levels.
Official reference rates
| Rate | Level | Date |
|---|---|---|
| CBK US dollar/Kuwaiti dinar | 0.30795/05 | 22/10/2026, value 26/10 |
| CBE US dollar/Egyptian pound | 55.2576 / 55.3576 | 22/10/2026 |
The CBK row carries the central bank’s value date as printed on its main indicators page. The CBE row is the average market series on the bank’s statistics page.
Asia, session of Thursday 22 October
| Index | Close | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Straits Times (Singapore) | 5,415.14 | -0.42% |
| S&P/ASX 200 (Australia) | 8,793.20 | -0.43% |
| Nifty 50 (India) | 22,687.65 | -0.54% |
| Topix (Japan) | 3,997.50 | -1.14% |
| Shanghai Composite (China) | 3,658.03 | -1.48% |
| Taiex (Taiwan) | 46,041.43 | -1.81% |
| Nikkei 225 (Japan) | 62,907.84 | -2.65% |
| Shenzhen Component (China) | 11,357.32 | -2.96% |
| Hang Seng (Hong Kong) | 22,934.68 | -3.03% |
| Kospi (South Korea) | 5,533.77 | -3.52% |
Carried whole from our Asia Market Wrap of Thursday 22 October 2026; all ten indices fell that session, and the rows run from the shallowest fall to the deepest.
Why it matters: The selling that took all ten indices in our Asia wrap lower arrived in the same session that closed all nine regional markets down, and the depth map matches: the two deepest falls sat in Riyadh, where one symbol rose for every twenty that fell, and in Cairo, where the equity slide landed beside a pound fixing about 1.7 percent weaker in a day; measured in dollars at the central bank’s average market rates, Cairo’s one-day equity loss is about 5.0 percent, on our calculation. A seventh straight decline in Kuwait and a sixth in Muscat say the regional pullback predates today’s global turn. Of the 19 indices we published today, every one closed lower; Bahrain’s All Share fell least at 0.32 percent and the Kospi most at 3.52 percent, on our count.
Outlook: Dubai and Abu Dhabi trade again on Friday; the rest of the region returns Sunday. The central banks’ next dated fixings, Kuwait’s on Sunday morning and Egypt’s with its next published update, will show whether the pound’s slide extends, and Riyadh enters Sunday’s session on a four-day fall.
How these wraps are prepared: Methodology.
Sources: Boursa Kuwait, Saudi Exchange, Qatar Stock Exchange, Muscat Stock Exchange, Bahrain Bourse, Amman Stock Exchange, The Egyptian Exchange, Dubai Financial Market, Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, Central Bank of Kuwait, Central Bank of Egypt, CNBC, The Edge.
