Market Wrap MENA-Asia 20 July: Qatar Reclaims 10,000 and Cairo Closes Above 53,000 While Muscat Drops 3.44 Percent and Seoul Returns to the Chip Rout Down 4.46 Percent

By The Edge Research Team

The escalation’s second Monday sorted the region into winners and casualties with unusual clarity. The Qatar Stock Exchange’s second session back took the QE Index up to 10,083.79, reclaiming the 10,000 line a day after its quiet reopening with a gain of 1.30 percent, and Cairo’s EGX30 closed above 53,000 for the first time in our published record, up 1.08 percent at 53,126.01. The bill landed elsewhere: Muscat’s MSX 30 collapsed 3.44 percent, its worst session of the crisis by a wide margin, and the Egyptian pound spent the day at the 51 line it crossed late Friday. In Asia, Seoul returned from its long weekend straight into Friday’s chip rout, the Kospi falling 4.46 percent, while Hong Kong rebounded 2.36 percent and Tokyo was closed for the Marine Day holiday.

Doha turned a safe reopening into a strong one. A day after returning from its six-day suspension at 9,954.84 with no published comparative, the QE Index ended Monday at 10,083.79 with 410.3 million riyals traded, up from Sunday’s 323.0 million, per the exchange’s prints, a rise of 1.30 percent across the two session levels. Two sessions into its return, the market has absorbed the suspension, an 88 dollar Brent and a global chip crash, and gone looking for the round number above, our reading.

Cairo supplied the day’s other milestone. The EGX30 rose 1.08 percent to 53,126.01 after touching 53,290.46 during the session, per the exchange’s prints, its first close above 53,000 in our published record, and is now up 27.01 percent for the year. The exchange’s dollar-terms EGX30 series rose 1.18 percent, its own print. The currency told a different story: the pound crossed 51 per dollar late Friday on CNBC’s references, which put Friday’s New York close at 51.07 against 50.50 at our Friday wrap’s pull, and spent Monday afternoon swinging around the line, quoted at 51.09 and then back to 51.00 by 16:07 Kuwait time. That leaves it about 1.0 percent weaker than our Friday pull, our calculation across differing quote times, at its weakest levels in our coverage. An equity market at record local-currency levels priced in a currency at its weakest of the crisis is the Egyptian trade in one line, our reading.

The Gulf’s large caps held their pattern of shallow moves. TASI added 0.23 percent to 10,741.99 with the MSCI Tadawul 30 up 0.58 percent at 1,437.91, leaving the Saudi benchmark within about 0.7 percent of its last pre-blockade close, our calculation. Boursa Kuwait’s All Share Index rose 0.10 percent to 8,626.87 with the Premier Market Index up 0.09 percent at 9,044.17, and Bahrain’s All Share recovered 0.19 percent to 1,965.38 after Sunday’s 1.17 percent drop, the escalation’s largest for that market. Amman firmed 0.22 percent to 3,906.55 per the exchange’s prints. Dubai and Abu Dhabi, back from their weekend for their first pass at Friday’s global chip crash and the 88 dollar Brent, barely moved: the DFM General Index eased 0.30 percent to 5,796.28 and Abu Dhabi’s FADGI 0.32 percent to 9,750.75.

Muscat broke from the pack entirely. The MSX 30 fell 3.44 percent to 7,152.35 with 52 decliners to 5 gainers, per the exchange’s prints, its fourth straight fall and by far its largest of the escalation, after daily declines of 0.43, 1.20 and 0.98 percent, our reading of the session record. The three-session slide since Wednesday’s close now stands at about 5.5 percent, our calculation. The concentration is striking against a region otherwise green on the day, and against the IMF’s current projections, which keep Oman in positive growth territory this year even as four regional economies are projected to contract, per the IMF figures covered in Sunday’s wrap.

Asia’s session was a catch-up trade in both directions. Seoul, closed Friday when the global chip complex cracked, took the hit on Monday instead: the Kospi fell 4.46 percent to 6,516.27, its first session since the Taiex’s 6.47 percent Friday plunge and the Nasdaq’s 1.40 percent slide. Hong Kong went the other way, the Hang Seng rising 2.36 percent to 25,143.05, and Shanghai added 0.85 percent to 3,796.28, while Shenzhen’s component index slipped a further 0.71 percent to 13,610.23 after Friday’s 5.40 percent drop and Taiwan’s Taiex steadied, down 0.52 percent at 42,449.70. India’s Nifty 50 eased 0.39 percent to 24,238.50, Australia’s ASX 200 closed flat and Singapore’s Straits Times Index edged down 0.19 percent. Tokyo was closed for the Marine Day public holiday, leaving Friday’s 4.03 percent Nikkei drop as its last print.

Oil’s first full session after the weekend reopening was a round trip rather than a rest. Brent traded as high as 91.42 dollars overnight and as low as 86.12 before settling back to 88.70 by late afternoon Kuwait time, up 0.68 percent from Friday’s official close of 88.10, per CNBC’s session figures, a market that repriced the tanker-attack weekend and then took the premium back out, holding last week’s 16 percent surge without adding a decisive new leg. WTI followed the same path between 85.39 and 80.27 to trade at 82.72, up 0.28 percent. Gold held just above the 4,000 line at 4,012.80 dollars, the VIX eased 3.62 percent to 18.09 from Friday’s escalation high, and the 10-year Treasury yield backed up about 3 basis points to 4.57 percent. In currencies, the euro slipped 0.18 percent to 1.1418, sterling and the yen were little changed at 1.3452 and 162.40, and the Kuwaiti dinar held near 0.3076 on CNBC quotes. Bitcoin rose 0.35 percent to 64,607 dollars.

Further west, Friday’s closes from our published wrap remain the reference: the Nasdaq fell 1.40 percent to 25,520.24 and the S&P 500 1.01 percent to 7,457.69 in the chip-led selloff, while London’s FTSE 100 was the major-market exception, up 0.27 percent at 10,600.37.

Why it matters: A week and two sessions in, the escalation’s cost is no longer spread evenly across Gulf screens: it is concentrating in specific places, Muscat’s equity market, now down four sessions running with Monday’s fall dwarfing the prior three, and Egypt’s currency, holding at the 51 line it crossed late Friday even as Cairo’s equity index sets records in local terms. The headline benchmarks meanwhile say resilience: Qatar back above 10,000 two sessions after a six-day suspension, TASI within 1 percent of pre-blockade, and the UAE shrugging at a chip crash it had all weekend to price. Dispersion, not direction, is becoming the regional read.

Outlook: The week’s setters sit outside the region: the European Central Bank’s Thursday decision with an 88 dollar Brent inside it, UK inflation, and Tesla’s results in an AI-spending earnings season that just repriced the chip complex. Regionally, the watch is whether Muscat’s slide finds a floor, whether the pound settles above or below 51, and whether Seoul’s catch-up completes Asia’s adjustment or extends it, with Tokyo returning from holiday on Tuesday.

Table – MENA and Asia equities, 20 July close, ranked by change:

Table – US and Europe, Friday 17 July closes, for reference, ranked by change:

Table – Commodities, rates, volatility, FX and crypto, intraday 20 July:

Price basis: Gulf and Egypt closes pulled 15:23-15:47 Kuwait time at exchange originators on 20 July, with the Saudi close re-verified after the final print settled; Asia closes via CNBC quotes about 12:25 UTC and commodity, rate and FX figures via CNBC quotes about 13:07 UTC on 20 July; commodity and FX figures are intraday quotes, not settlements; the Qatar change is computed across the exchange’s published Sunday and Monday session levels, the exchange having published no comparative close through the suspension.

Sources: Qatar Stock Exchange; Egyptian Exchange; Saudi Exchange; Boursa Kuwait; Bahrain Bourse; Muscat Stock Exchange; Amman Stock Exchange; Dubai Financial Market; Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange; International Monetary Fund; CNBC.

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