Middle East stocks likely to remain range-bound

Riyadh: Middle East stocks were seen on Sunday trading sideways in the absence of major catalysts, tracking a similar end-of-week performance on global markets and a muted performance by Saudi Arabia the day before.

The Saudi index edged 0.1 per cent higher on Saturday, with a 0.9 per cent rise in Saudi Basic Industries Corp (Sabic) offsetting declines in Samba Financial Group and SABB.

"The market should remain range-bound as we can't see any catalysts strong enough to re-rate the market in the short term," says Ali Khan, managing director and head of brokerage at Arqaam Capital.

"There should be a mixed performance in a narrow trading range — I don't think the market should move more than one to 1.5 per cent up or down."

"Saudi was stable and the US closed flat so I would be surprised to see another round of aggressive selling today."

Saudi Kayan Petrochemical weighs on Saudi's benchmark, while bank losses widened during the trading session, as the absence of any positive catalysts and negative sentiment on banks weighed on the index.