Middle East Market Wrap 1 October: Cairo Surges 2.24 Percent to Snap Four Declines as the Gulf Slips

By The Edge Research Team

The EGX 30 surged 2.24 percent to 53,055.03 on Thursday, snapping four straight declines on our records as gainers outnumbered decliners 198 to 13 across the Cairo market on the exchange’s own count, while six Gulf boards closed lower, the falls running from Manama’s 0.17 percent to Kuwait’s 0.75. Muscat and Amman carried the region’s other gains, at 0.42 and 0.38 percent, and Abu Dhabi’s index ended the day 1.76 points under the 10,000 line. Brent crude traded at 99.79 dollars a barrel at 12:25 GMT, 1.80 percent above Wednesday’s reference level on the December contract, easing back under 100 dollars from our midmorning read, as published in our Asia Market Wrap of 1 October 2026.

Cairo’s surge snaps four declines as the pound’s fixing weakens

Cairo carried the session. The EGX 30 added 1,160.20 points to 53,055.03 on the exchange’s own 2.24 percent print, a close back above last Sunday’s 53,031.69, with 198 gainers against 13 decliners and 10 unchanged across the market on the exchange’s board. The move came alongside a weaker official fixing: the Central Bank of Egypt’s average market rate for the dollar printed 52.2725 buy and 52.3725 sell on Thursday’s statistics page, 0.68 and 0.60 percent weaker for the pound on the two sides against Wednesday’s fixing on the same series. Muscat’s MSX 30 rose 0.42 percent to 7,598.512, adding 31.694 points on the exchange’s own closed board, which settled above its earlier pre closing print, and Amman’s ASE index closed 0.38 percent higher at 4,206.57.

Kuwait’s third decline leads the Gulf lower as Abu Dhabi closes under 10,000

The red side was uniform but shallow outside Kuwait. The Kuwait All Share Index fell 0.75 percent, or 65.67 points, to 8,713.71, a third straight decline on our records, with the Premier Market index 0.59 percent lower and the Main Market down 1.48 on the exchange’s own splits. The FTSE ADX General Index in Abu Dhabi lost 0.72 percent to 9,998.24, closing 1.76 points under the 10,000 line, the QE Index in Doha eased 0.57 percent to 9,192.24 for a fifth straight decline on our records, Dubai’s DFM General Index fell 0.51 percent to 5,930.40 on the exchange’s own closing figure, Tadawul All Share in Riyadh slipped 0.46 percent to 10,392.97 for a fourth straight decline, and Bahrain’s All Share eased 0.17 percent to 1,904.50. On the standing rows at 12:25 GMT, the crude pair traded above Wednesday’s reference levels, Brent 1.80 percent higher at 99.79 dollars a barrel on the December contract and WTI up 1.34 percent at 91.63, gold traded 0.46 percent higher at 4,205.80 dollars an ounce, and the dollar index rose 0.31 percent. The Central Bank of Kuwait’s dollar/dinar reference stood at 0.30790/00 on Thursday’s main indicators page, with both value dates falling on 5 October.

Top gainers

Top losers

Top gainers, closes of Thursday 1 October 2026 off the exchanges’ own pages, ranked by change; the EGX 30 and MSX 30 changes are the exchanges’ own prints, the MSX 30 row from the exchange’s closed board and the EGX 30 from its Egyptian pound index view, and the ASE change is the exchange’s own percentage. Changes are against our published Wednesday levels.

Top losers, same session and basis, ranked from the shallowest to the deepest decline. The Dubai change is the exchange’s own closing figure, the Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Bahrain changes are the exchanges’ own prints, the Tadawul All Share change is the exchange’s own percentage, and the QE Index change is our calculation against our published Wednesday close, from the exchange’s own header ticker. Changes are against our published Wednesday levels.

Commodities and currencies

Intraday quotes at 12:25 GMT on Thursday 1 October 2026, fixed row order; snapshot levels, not settlements, with changes against Wednesday’s reference levels as carried in the price feed. The Brent row is the December 2026 contract, the front month since November’s final trading day on Wednesday as published in our Commodities Wrap of 30 September 2026, and its previous value is the December series’ own. Contract months as the feed displays them.

Official reference rates

Dated official fixings from the central banks’ own pages; the CBK pair is the dollar/dinar rate on Thursday’s main indicators page, published at 08:00 with both the dinar and dollar value dates shown as 5 October, and the CBE row is the average market rate on the bank’s statistics page. Dated official fixings never share a table with market quotes.

Asia reference

Carried whole from our Asia Market Wrap of 1 October 2026, closes of Thursday 1 October on the basis published there, stacked gainers then losers; the Nifty 50 row is the National Stock Exchange of India’s own close, and mainland China’s two boards and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng did not trade for the National Day holiday, all as disclosed there.

Why it matters: One board carried the region: Cairo’s 2.24 percent surge stands against six Gulf declines bunched inside six tenths of a percent of one another, and it lands on the day the pound’s official fixing weakened past 52.27 on the central bank’s own series, a pairing we record without assigning a cause. Kuwait, Doha and Riyadh each extended multi session slides on our records, and Abu Dhabi’s close 1.76 points under 10,000 puts the region’s two largest UAE boards lower together. Across everything we published on Thursday, the Nikkei 225 at 3.30 percent higher remains the day’s best row and the S&P/ASX 200 at 1.99 percent lower the worst, with the EGX 30’s 2.24 the strongest in this region, on our count.

Outlook: This series returns on Sunday, when Boursa Kuwait’s new trading, clearing and settlement structure under CMA Resolution 85 of 2026 takes effect, per the exchange’s own notice. Our Europe wrap follows this evening with the continental closes, tonight’s commodities wrap reads the session’s written settlements with the Brent row chaining on the December series, and Friday’s September US employment report, expected at 84,000 nonfarm payrolls per the network as carried in our US Market Wrap of 30 September, is the week’s remaining data test.

Sources: Saudi Exchange, Boursa Kuwait, Qatar Stock Exchange, Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, Dubai Financial Market, Muscat Stock Exchange, Bahrain Bourse, Amman Stock Exchange, The Egyptian Exchange, Central Bank of Kuwait, Central Bank of Egypt, The Edge.

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