Middle East Market Wrap 13 September: Saudi Slides 1.30 Percent and Egypt 1.09 Percent Before the Fed

By The Edge Research Team

Saudi Arabia led the Middle East lower on the region’s first session after crude’s Friday retreat. The Tadawul All Share closed down 142.70 points, or 1.30 percent, at 10,864.57, its steepest daily decline since the escalation began on 1 September, on our count against our published closes. Egypt’s EGX 30 fell 1.09 percent to 55,664.79, the largest decline in our published record for the index, which begins on 30 August, closing at its session low as the Central Bank of Egypt’s dollar buy rate reached 51.3068 pounds, the pound’s weakest level in our published record. Of the 7 headline benchmarks that traded on Sunday, 2 rose, 4 fell and Bahrain closed unchanged, a spread of 1.55 percentage points on our calculation, and Kuwait ran against the board: its Main Market rose 1.01 percent, a sixth consecutive advance in our published record. Brent had settled at 104.61 dollars on Friday, down 2.81 percent after a report that Gulf foreign ministers could meet their Iranian counterparts over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, per our Commodities Wrap of 11 September, while United States rate futures priced an 87 percent probability of a Federal Reserve quarter point increase at Wednesday’s meeting, per our US Market Wrap of 11 September.

Saudi Arabia’s steepest fall of the month

The Tadawul All Share’s 1.30 percent decline was more than half as large again as its steepest previous fall this month, the 0.80 percent of 2 September, on our calculation against our published closes. The MSCI Tadawul 30 lost 1.25 percent to 1,458.75 and the Nomu Parallel Market fell just 0.25 percent to 21,579.19, per the exchange, and the decline was the headline index’s third in a row, after slips of 0.19 and 0.08 percent on Wednesday and Thursday, on our count. The session was the market’s first since Saudi Arabia said it had temporarily closed the East-West crude pipeline as a precaution after a drone attack that both Baghdad and Riyadh said originated in Iraq, per Reuters, which put the line’s recent flow at 4 million to 5 million barrels a day, about 4 to 5 percent of global supply, and described it as the main outlet for Middle East oil in the 6 months the Strait of Hormuz has been largely shut. During Sunday’s session the British navy affiliated agency UKMTO reported a projectile hitting a vessel moving through the strait, with the crew evacuated after a fire, per the same report. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday it would attend a meeting with Gulf Arab states in Oman on Monday at which the future of the strait is to be discussed; a senior Iranian official played down the chances of a signed agreement, per the same report.

Egypt’s largest fall on our record, and a weaker pound

The EGX 30 opened at Thursday’s close of 56,280.17, which was also the session high, and fell through the day to close at its low of 55,664.79, down 615.38 points, on our calculation from the exchange’s index page. The index never traded above its open, its year to date gain narrowed to 33.08 percent from the 34.30 percent it showed on 8 September, the most recent reading in our published record, and in dollar terms the exchange put the day’s decline at 1.16 percent. The wider dollar loss reflects the currency: the central bank’s rate for 13 September was 51.3068 pounds to buy a dollar and 51.4443 to sell, 0.64 percent weaker on the buy leg than the 8 September rate, the most recent in our published record, and 2.31 percent weaker than the 26 August rate where that record begins, both on our calculation. EGX 30 constituents traded 3.77 billion pounds, 34.30 percent of the day’s value, which implies total market turnover near 11.0 billion pounds, on our calculation. The decline is the index’s second in a row and lands 11 days before the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee meets on 24 September.

Kuwait rises for a sixth session, and its board splits

Boursa Kuwait’s Main Market Index rose 94.59 points, or 1.01 percent, to 9,427.30, its sixth consecutive advance in our published record, which carries the index from 6 September, and the largest of the run, on our count. The BK Main 50 did better still, up 1.18 percent at 11,247.48, while the Premier Market Index fell 0.20 percent to 9,305.56, a 1.38 percentage point gap between the two indices on our calculation, and the All Share Index closed 1.43 points higher, up 0.02 percent, at 8,944.17. Turnover was 123.2 million dinars across 27,612 trades on 453.2 million shares. The exchange’s economic indicator board marked Kuwait’s export crude at 119.02 dollars a barrel, up 92 cents, or 0.78 percent, from the prior marking.

Qatar recovers, the rest barely moves, and the UAE sits out

Qatar’s QE Index rose 24.46 points, or 0.25 percent, to 9,848.95 on the exchange’s own market watch, recovering most of Thursday’s 27.00 point fall, on our calculation, on value traded of 224.3 million riyals. Bahrain’s All Share closed unchanged at 1,929.56 on 82 trades worth 297,695 dinars. Muscat’s MSX 30 slipped 1.047 points, or 0.01 percent, to 7,646.639, with 18 advancers against 32 decliners on the exchange’s count and turnover of 43.4 million rials, and Amman’s ASE Index eased 0.16 percent to 4,086.23, on our calculation against our published closes. Abu Dhabi and Dubai trade Monday to Friday and were shut; they completed their week on Friday with the FTSE ADX General effectively flat, up 0.32 points at 10,112.58 on 1.16 billion dirhams of value, and the DFM General up 0.63 percent at 5,941.23 on the exchange’s own daily closing table, snapping 2 consecutive declines. Both return on Monday.

Risers; the second table carries the unchanged and falling indices and the full note.

Closes for Sunday 13 September 2026, ranked by change and split across 2 tables for legibility on a phone. Every level was read at the index’s own exchange after its session close; the Kuwait, Muscat and Bahrain pages showed the session closed, the Amman, Cairo and Doha reads carried the exchanges’ own dated 13 September figures, and the Saudi rows are the closes after the exchange’s status showed Market Closed. The Qatar market watch lists Thursday 10 September as the previous day. The Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi headline, Egyptian, Bahraini and Jordanian changes all are measured against our own published closes of 10 September; the Jordan percentage is our calculation on that basis, the MSX and Bahrain figures are the exchanges’ own, and the MSCI Tadawul 30’s change is the exchange’s own, that row not having been carried in our 10 September tables. Omitted rows: BK Main 50 (Kuwait) 11,247.48, plus 1.18 percent; Nomu Parallel Market (Saudi Arabia) 21,579.19, minus 0.25 percent. The count of 2 of 7 rising uses one headline benchmark per trading market: the QE Index and Kuwait All Share rose; the Tadawul All Share, EGX 30, ASE Index and MSX 30 fell; the Bahrain All Share was unchanged. Abu Dhabi and Dubai did not trade on Sunday; their Friday 11 September closes are in the text.

Friday 11 September 2026 levels, carried from our Commodities Wrap of 11 September 2026 for reference and ranked by change; the futures markets were closed through the Gulf’s Sunday session and reopen in the evening. The Brent and WTI rows are the official Friday settlements as carried in that wrap; gold is a post settlement snapshot against Thursday’s settlement, and the dollar index is a spot quote, both, at 20:32 GMT on Friday.

Why it matters: Last week crude’s rise did not lift the Gulf’s equity markets as a bloc, per our Middle East wraps of 9 and 10 September, and on Sunday the relationship showed its other side: a retreat in the oil price coincided with the steepest Saudi fall of the month, on our reading. That asymmetry suggests the region’s equity investors are weighing the damage side of the escalation, the attacks now reaching the kingdom’s own export infrastructure, more heavily than the revenue side of a higher barrel. The pipeline matters because of what it has been substituting for: at 4 million to 5 million barrels a day it has carried the exports that the largely shut strait cannot, per the wire’s reporting, so a threat to it is a threat to the workaround, not just to one route. Egypt’s move is the importer’s version of the same story, on our reading: a record fall on our books for the EGX 30 arriving with the weakest pound in our record, 11 days before its rate setters meet. Kuwait’s divergence, a sixth straight Main Market gain against a flat All Share and a falling Premier Market, says the buying there is concentrated below the large caps.

Outlook: Monday’s meeting in Oman between Gulf Arab states and Iran on the future of the strait, reported by Reuters, is the region’s nearest catalyst on our reading, and the oil futures market reopens on Sunday evening with a fresh attack on a vessel in the strait reported during the Gulf trading day. Tuesday brings Saudi Arabia’s August consumer and wholesale prices and July producer prices from the General Authority for Statistics, the strongest domestic session in the Gulf this week, per our Week Ahead of 12 September. The Federal Reserve decides on Wednesday with a Summary of Economic Projections attached, after the Gulf’s cash markets close, which makes Thursday the first full regional session able to price it; 5 of the 6 Gulf currencies run dollar linked regimes, and Egypt’s own committee sits on Thursday 24 September, both per the same Week Ahead. On our reading the week’s question for the region is which reprices first, the strait or the dollar.

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

Get Complimentary Insights

Follow us