Move Over Saudi. Meet Stock Investors' New Darling in Gulf - Bloomberg

Move Over Saudi. Meet Stock Investors' New Darling in Gulf - Bloomberg:

Once overshadowed by its bigger neighbors in the Gulf, Kuwait’s market has emerged as the new darling of global investors.

Kuwaiti stocks have outperformed most of their Persian Gulf peers since MSCI Inc. said in June that it might announce the upgrade of the nation to emerging-market status next year, joining the ranks of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Money is already flowing in ahead of Kuwait’s Sept. 24 accession to FTSE Russell’s emerging-market benchmarks as efforts by the country’s market regulator to boost liquidity and attract international interest pay off.

“Overtaken by the U.A.E. when it comes to economic freedom, and in the shadow of Saudi Arabia’s now-accessible equity market, Kuwait capital markets have been long neglected by investors and Kuwaiti policy makers,” Marshall Stocker, a Boston-based portfolio manager at Eaton Vance Corp., said in an email. “We are invested in Kuwait for an incipient policy liberalization story, one that is admittedly taking quite a while to unfold but is happening if you pull out your looking glass.”