Saudi Arabia's stock market rose in early trading on Thursday after Riyadh said oil output lost in weekend attacks on two Aramco plants would be restored by the end of September. Saudi Arabia said it continues to supply oil to its customers from its stockpiles and the attacks would have no impact on government revenues. The Saudi index was up 0.2 percent. National Commercial Bank and Saudi Telecom both rose 1 percent. The central banks of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, cut interest rates on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve lowered U.S. rates, which Saudi officials said should help the country's banks by boost lending. But the tensions in Middle East held back Saudi stocks and weighed on other regional markets after Saudi Arabia presented what it called undeniable evidence of Iranian links to the Aramco attacks. In Abu Dhabi, stocks fell 0.9 percent. First Abu Dhabi Bank dropped 1.2 percent and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank 2.8 percent. Banks also drove Dubai's index down 0.3 percent, its third day of losses. Dubai Islamic Bank fell 0.9 percent and the emirate's biggest bank, Emirates NBD, lost 0.4 percent. Qatar's index was up 0.1 percent, led by a 2.9 percent rise in Qatar Insurance . Mesaieed Petrochemical rose 2 percent. Source: Reuters Africa
