Mideast stocks shrug off Turkey coup

CAIRO: Most Gulf stock indexes rose, even after an attempted coup to overthrow the Turkish government that began last Friday rattled global markets.

Saudi Arabia’s Almarai Co, the region’s largest publicly-traded packaged-food manufacturer, climbed as much as 5.5% after posting a 19% increase in second-quarter profit.

It was one of the biggest contributors to the Tadawul All Share Index’s 0.4% gain.

The Bloomberg GCC 200 Index, which tracks some of the biggest companies in the six nations that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council, added 0.3%.

Stocks in the Middle East were the first to trade after an attempted military coup that killed more than 200 people in Turkey collapsed less than a day after it started.

The violence helped end the MSCI ACWI Index’s six-day winning streak, the longest stretch since October.

With most of the region’s biggest investors still on vacation, the volume of shares traded on gauges across most of the GCC markets was below their six-month intraday averages.

“At the end of the day, there was no change in government,” in Turkey, said Sanyalak Manibhandu, the head of research at NBAD Securities LLC, a unit of Abu Dhabi’s biggest bank. “There has been no disruption to crude supply, trade and transport. Also, a lot of big investors are on holiday, but they’re on holiday until something big brings them back.”

Manibhandu, who has an accumulate recommendation on Almarai, said the company “gives investors a way to diversify from banks and petrochemicals.”

Second-quarter profit rose to 628.8 million riyals (US$168mil) as sales climbed 10%, according to a company statement to the Saudi bourse on Sunday.

Traders exchanged 834,000 of the company’s shares, more than four times the six-month intraday average.

Dubai’s DFM General Index and Abu Dhabi’s ADX General Index gained 0.5% each. Oman’s MSM 30 rose 0.2%. In Bahrain, the BB All Share Index slumped 0.7%. Qatar’s gauge retreated 0.2%, while Kuwaiti stocks were little changed. – Bloomberg