Saturday 28 August 2010

Saudi Shares Gain Most in One Month on Oil Price Rally, Bernanke Comments - Bloomberg

Saudi Arabian shares rose the most in a month, after U.S. and European markets advanced and oil prices rallied on a pledge by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to maintain the U.S. economic recovery.

Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the world’s largest petrochemicals maker, known as Sabic, advanced to the highest since Aug. 23 after oil prices rose by $1.7 a barrel in the past week. The Tadawul All Share Index gauge gained 0.9 percent, the most since July 27, to 6,055.54, at the 3:30 p.m. close in Riyadh. The gauge pared its loss since the start of August to 3.6 percent.

“The market is reacting positively to a higher close for oil over the weekend,” said Anas Kassem, an investment analyst at Ajeej Capital in Riyadh, “in addition to Bernanke’s speech yesterday which helped western markets bounce back at the end of a difficult week.”

Hedge-Fund Manager Yan Swiderski Pushes the Envelope in Emerging Markets - Barrons.com

AS AN AVID WINDSURFER IN HIS YOUTH, Yan Swiderski would listen to BBC shipping forecasts from his home in England to learn about wind conditions off a point on the northwest shore of Spain. This particular stormy coast, protruding into the Atlantic, is known as Finisterre.

Swiderski, 48, thought of Finisterre when it came to branding the London-based emerging-markets investment firm he teamed up with in 2002. "Literally meaning 'at land's end,' it captures much of the emerging-markets story, looking out from the old world across stormy waters to a new one," he says.

As its performance attests, Finisterre Capital has navigated those waters well. Since its inception in April 2006 through July 2010, the firm's $720 million flagship Global Opportunity Fund, which Swiderski manages with the help of six analysts, has generated annualized returns exceeding 13.6%. The fund has beaten both emerging-market equity and fixed-income benchmarks by roughly five percentage points a year in this time.

GCC Market Analytics: Weekly GCC Trend Analysis


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Notes:
1. In the "Current Trend Conditions" section the short-term, medium-term and long-term trend values are determined by dual moving averages. The trend value is "Up" when the the shorter length moving average is greater the longer length moving average. The trend value is "Down" when the the shorter length moving average is less then the longer length moving average. For more information on dual moving averages see previous post here.
2. Dual moving average parameters are specific to each index and time-frame (short, medium and long).
3. The "Outlook" value can be "Very Bullish," "Bullish," "Neutral," "Bearish" or "Very Bearish." The value is determined by the historical performance of the index when the same short, medium and long-term trend conditions were in evidence in the past.
4. The top chart shows a plot of the historical price performance of the index. Highlighted on the chart are the past periods when the current trend conditions were in evidence in the past
5. The bottom chart shows the non-compounded percentage returns of the index when the current trend condition were in evidence in the past.

The Associated Press: The 'new Dubai'? Libya open for business

In the outskirts of this city, Libya's second largest, row after row of sand-colored concrete apartment blocks and villas are sprouting from the desert. Hundreds of kilometers away, construction cranes dot the Mediterranean skyline of the capital, Tripoli.

The multibillion dollar construction frenzy taking place is the latest and most visible sign of Libya's drive for growth. It's a push that largely ignored the global financial meltdown that left other oil-rich Arab nations stumbling over the last couple of years, and reflects how Libya is tapping its oil wealth to reshape a country isolated for years by sanctions and international disdain.

Libya is "really trying to become, for lack of a better term, a new Dubai." said Carlos Caceres, a representative of the Los Angeles-based engineering giant AECOM working in Benghazi. He was referring to the United Arab Emirate sheikdom whose stratospheric rise was rivaled only by its staggering debt woes.