Middle East Market Wrap 15 October: Eight of Nine Markets Fall as Dubai’s Run Ends and Cairo Alone Rises
Eight of the nine Middle East markets fell on Thursday as the Houthis threatened more attacks on Saudi Arabia, while Cairo’s EGX 30 rose 1.52 percent as the only gain, closing at its session high. Dubai’s four-session winning run ended with a 1.05 percent fall, and Qatar’s QE Index lost 1.35 percent to a level the wire called the lowest in more than six years at its morning read. Brent crude traded 1.29 percent below Wednesday’s settlement at 104.69 dollars a barrel on the 12:13 GMT reading.
Riyadh falls a second day as the Houthis pledge more attacks
The Tadawul All Share closed 0.32 percent lower at 10,106.54 in a second straight decline, on the wire’s account a course toward a sixth weekly loss, after Yemen’s Houthis pledged on Wednesday to keep attacking airports and oil facilities in the kingdom, a day after the strike on Saudi Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran, where a fire spread across several floors by the account of three people with direct knowledge carried by Reuters; Aramco traded 0.6 percent lower in the morning session, the same report said. Qatar’s QE Index fell 1.35 percent to 8,810.17 on 381.8 million riyals of trading, a second straight decline, Kuwait’s All-Share lost 0.68 percent to 8,475.93 with the Premier index down 0.60 and the Main 1.04, and Bahrain’s All Share eased 0.20 percent to 1,876.01. The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday that a long war in the Middle East, with further disruption to energy production, shipping routes or critical infrastructure, poses the biggest risk to the region’s economies, as Reuters carried it.
The Gulf’s winning runs end while Cairo closes at its high
Dubai’s DFM General fell 1.05 percent to 5,830.47 on 403.4 million dirhams of trading, ending a four-session winning run, and Abu Dhabi’s FTSE ADX General eased 0.30 percent to 9,804.54 after two days of gains. Muscat’s MSX 30 lost 1.00 percent to 7,678.054 with five gainers against forty-three decliners, falling after a single gain, and Amman’s ASE Index slipped 0.20 percent to 4,213.75 on our arithmetic, ending a three-session rise. Against the board, Cairo’s EGX 30 climbed 1.52 percent to 52,273.34 on the exchange’s own page, a second straight gain that closed at the session’s high with 115 gainers against 92 decliners across the listed market.
Gainers: EGX 30 (Egypt) 52,273.34, up 1.52 percent, the only gain.
Top losers
| Index | Close | Change |
|---|---|---|
| ASE Index (Jordan) | 4,213.75 | -0.20% |
| Bahrain All Share (Bahrain) | 1,876.01 | -0.20% |
| FTSE ADX General (Abu Dhabi) | 9,804.54 | -0.30% |
| Tadawul All Share (Saudi Arabia) | 10,106.54 | -0.32% |
| Boursa Kuwait All-Share (Kuwait) | 8,475.93 | -0.68% |
| MSX 30 (Oman) | 7,678.054 | -1.00% |
| DFM General (Dubai) | 5,830.47 | -1.05% |
| QE Index (Qatar) | 8,810.17 | -1.35% |
Closes of Thursday 15 October 2026 from the exchanges’ own pages, ranked from the shallowest to the deepest decline against Wednesday’s closes as published; Amman and Bahrain tie at two decimals and rank on the unrounded arithmetic, and the Amman banner is unsigned and the Doha ticker carries no index percent, so both changes are our arithmetic; only the EGX 30 rose, carried above the table as a single line.
Commodities and currencies
| Instrument | Level | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Gold, COMEX (Dec’26), dollars an ounce | 4,168.00 | +1.46% |
| Silver, COMEX (Dec’26), dollars an ounce | 56.785 | +1.62% |
| Brent Crude, ICE (Dec’26), dollars a barrel | 104.69 | -1.29% |
| WTI Crude, NYMEX (Nov’26), dollars a barrel | 95.41 | +0.34% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 102.13 | -0.41% |
| Euro/Dollar | 1.1204 | +0.43% |
| Sterling/Dollar | 1.3243 | +0.39% |
| Dollar/Yen | 157.98 | -0.21% |
Intraday quotes at 12:13 GMT, in fixed order; snapshots, not settlements. The gold, Brent and WTI changes are against Wednesday’s settlements of 4,107.90, 106.06 and 95.09 dollars, as published in our Commodities Wrap of 14 October 2026; the silver change is against the feed’s prior settlement.
Official reference rates
| Currency | Buy | Sell |
|---|---|---|
| US Dollar | 53.0544 | 53.1544 |
| Euro | 59.3573 | 59.5914 |
The Central Bank of Egypt’s average market rates in Egyptian pounds, dated 14 October 2026, the latest published; dated official rates, not market quotes.
Asia, session of Thursday 15 October
| Index | Close | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Nifty 50 (India) | 22,997.35 | +1.66% |
| S&P/ASX 200 (Australia) | 8,719.70 | -0.09% |
| Straits Times (Singapore) | 5,403.50 | -0.37% |
| Hang Seng (Hong Kong) | 24,062.72 | -1.03% |
| Shanghai Composite (China) | 3,707.48 | -1.59% |
| Topix (Japan) | 3,999.34 | -2.38% |
| Shenzhen Component (China) | 11,816.79 | -2.43% |
| Taiex (Taiwan) | 46,969.87 | -3.41% |
| Nikkei 225 (Japan) | 64,425.95 | -4.90% |
| Kospi (South Korea) | 5,554.22 | -7.57% |
Carried whole from our Asia Market Wrap of 15 October 2026, the gainer then the losers in its published order; the Nifty row is the exchange’s own figure.
Why it matters: The Houthi threat to Saudi facilities pressed Riyadh toward what the wire counts as a sixth weekly loss and the selling ended Dubai’s four-session run, with Doha closing at a level the wire’s morning read put at more than a six-year low, while the one market that rose, Cairo, closed at its session high with 115 gainers against 92 decliners. Crude did not carry the day’s risk the same way: Brent fell on the shadow-fleet sanctions talk while WTI edged higher, as our midday commodities wrap recorded. One riser on a nine-market board, and it is the one furthest from the strait.
Outlook: Our Europe wrap follows after the 15:30 GMT closing auctions with Wall Street trading through the September producer price reading that landed at 12:30 GMT, and the commodities wrap returns tonight with the session’s settlements, this board carried. The EIA storage report lands at 16:00 GMT, a day late on Monday’s federal holiday.
How these wraps are prepared: Methodology.
Sources: Saudi Exchange, the Egyptian Exchange, Dubai Financial Market, Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, Qatar Stock Exchange, Bahrain Bourse, Muscat Stock Exchange, Boursa Kuwait, Amman Stock Exchange, the Central Bank of Egypt, CNBC, Reuters, The Edge.
