The combined market capitalisation of all Arab stock exchanges has fallen by $140bn since the Egyptian revolution was kickstarted by protests on January 25, according to data from the Arab Monetary Fund.
By comparison, the total market cap of Arab bourses rose by about $100bn in 2010, the fund previously reported. By January 25 of this year the exchanges had a total capitalisation of just over $1000bn.
As we reported earlier, the market panic of 2011 has a very all-bets-are-off feel about it, with investors dumping stocks in Qatar and Abu Dhabi just as hard as they sold shares in Egypt or Tunisia. Saudi Arabia has been hit as much as the two nations whose governments were overthrown in revolutions, despite plenty of evidence that a revolt there is unlikely. Investors will eventually begin differentiating between riskier and less-risky Arab markets, but not while the revolutionary cloud hangs so thick over the region.
Already, sentiment in Saudi Arabia seems to have - at least temporarily - returned from the land of pure fear. The Saudi exchange has risen almost 8 per cent since trading opened on Saturday, after the exchange tumbled by almost 20 per cent in the previous month.
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