Financial markets through the last five years | GulfNews.com

Financial markets through the last five years | GulfNews.com:

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• Image Credit: Ahmed Ramzan/Gulf News
• Investors at the Dubai Financial Market. Even though Dubai has been doing well for the last two years it is still down a whopping 60.1 per cent from its historic high.

Five years ago as news of the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers rocked the global financial system, shares across world’s stock exchanges plummeted.
The reaction in the Gulf was no different. The meltdown on Wall Street spread fear and panic among the region’s investors and on September 15, the day following Lehman’s announcement of filing for bankruptcy, Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul Index sank 6.5 per cent, Qatar’s QE Exchange Index plunged 7.1 per cent, Kuwait lost 3.8 per cent and Abu Dhabi and Dubai indices fell 4.4 and 1.7 per cent respectively.
However in the following week, except Saudi Arabia, all the others recovered and ended the week in positive territory. But the gains were short lived.
As the world came to terms with the severity of the West’s debt crisis in the following weeks and months and governments and central banks went out of their way to stem the deepening credit crunch with massive bailouts—US unveiling a $700 billion (Dh2.5 trillion) package in October and subsequently by bringing interest rates down to close to zero—reality was starting to hit home."

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