Middle East Market Wrap 12 October: Five of Nine Markets Fall as Doha Rebounds 1.15 Percent

By The Edge Research Team

Five of the nine Middle Eastern markets closed lower on Monday, while Doha’s QE Index rose 1.15 percent to snap four straight declines. Riyadh’s Tadawul All Share fell 0.74 percent in a fourth straight decline, with 57 gainers against 205 decliners on the exchange’s count, and Muscat’s MSX 30 ended its October winning run. Brent traded 1.26 percent above Friday’s settlement at 106.04 dollars a barrel by the 12:35 GMT reading.

Doha snaps its slide as the region answers the airport attacks

Reuters reported Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia jointly condemning the Houthi attacks on Riyadh’s international airport as a dangerous escalation that cannot be justified or accepted under any pretext, with the four holding the militia fully accountable, and Saudi authorities saying one person was killed and nearly a dozen hurt in a new attack on the airport on Sunday, a day after the strike that killed 13. Doha, the deepest faller of the past week, turned first: the QE Index rose 101.91 points to 8,976.64 on 254.6 million riyals of trade, with QNB up 2.18 percent, Commercial Bank of Qatar 1.98 and Qatar International Islamic Bank 1.70 on the exchange’s own board. Amman’s ASE Index added 0.37 percent to 4,167.62 to snap three straight declines on the exchange’s own figures, Dubai’s DFM General rose 0.33 percent to 5,837.77 in a second straight gain on 381.4 million dirhams of turnover, with Emirates NBD up 1.20 percent, and Kuwait’s All-Share Index edged 0.12 percent higher to 8,649.53, its second straight gain, on overall turnover of 70.7 million dinars with the Premier Market up 0.26 percent.

Riyadh falls a fourth session and Muscat’s October run ends

Reuters’ oil report, updated through the session, had Brent at its highest since 29 September as the attacks on Saudi Arabia overshadowed Washington’s Russian-supply announcements, with Goldman Sachs raising its December Brent forecast to 90 dollars a barrel from 85. The attacked market kept falling: the Tadawul All Share closed 76.78 points lower at 10,283.96, a fourth straight decline, with 57 stocks up and 205 down among 273 listed, on turnover of 3.5 billion riyals. Muscat’s MSX 30 lost 0.61 percent to 7,803.931, its first decline of October after rising in every session of the month, with 20 gainers against 32 decliners and turnover of 74.4 million rials. Abu Dhabi’s FTSE ADX General slipped 0.34 percent to 9,761.93 and Bahrain’s All Share 0.42 percent to 1,882.20, fifth straight declines for both, on 845.9 million dirhams and 405,263 dinars of trade, and Egypt’s EGX 30 fell 1.14 percent to 51,613.92 in a second straight decline since returning from its holiday, as the central bank’s average market rate for the pound weakened 0.15 percent further to 52.6064 to the dollar on the buy side.

Top gainers

Closes of Monday 12 October 2026 from the exchanges’ own pages, ranked highest to lowest; the ASE Index ranks above the DFM General on the unrounded change. Run lengths are counted against our published closes.

Top losers

Closes of Monday 12 October 2026, ranked shallowest to deepest against the previous closes as published; the Dubai and Abu Dhabi changes are measured against Friday’s closes, their last session.

Commodities and currencies

Intraday quotes at 12:35 GMT, in fixed order; snapshots, not settlements. The Brent and WTI changes are against Friday’s settlements of 104.72 and 91.85 dollars, as published in our Commodities Wrap of 9 October 2026.

Official reference rates

The CBK row carries the central bank’s value dates as printed on its main indicators page. The CBE row is the average market series on the bank’s statistics page.

Asia, session of Monday 12 October

Monday’s closes as published in our Asia Market Wrap of 12 October 2026; Tokyo’s equity markets did not trade for the Sports Day holiday.

Why it matters: Doha’s week tells the story of a premium that churns instead of settling: the market that fell hardest when a tanker was hit off its coast on Thursday led the region on Monday, while the market whose airport is under attack fell a fourth straight session with decliners nearly four to one. The rebound was selective enough to split one country, Dubai rising while Abu Dhabi fell a fifth session, and oil at a two-week high was no tide for the exporters: Monday’s gains were recoveries from last week’s deepest falls, not an oil dividend, while Muscat, the only market that had climbed through every session of the month, joined the fallers. Asia set the tone earlier, five of its eight open indices closing lower. Until the attacks stop reaching Riyadh, the region trades recovery one market at a time.

Outlook: Our Europe wrap follows this evening, and tonight’s commodities wrap reads the session’s settlements on the same December and November crude series. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook and Global Financial Stability Report land on Tuesday at the Bangkok Annual Meetings, as published in our Week Ahead of 11 to 17 October.

How these wraps are prepared: Methodology.

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

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