Mideast stock markets tumble as US tariffs and low oil prices squeeze energy-producing nations

Benchmark Brent crude is down by astir 15% implicit the past 5 days of trading, with a tube of lipid costing conscionable implicit $63. That’s down astir 30% from a twelvemonth ago, erstwhile a tube outgo implicit $90.

That outgo per tube is acold little than the estimated break-even terms for Saudi Arabia and astir different countries producing vigor successful the Middle East. That's coupled with the caller tariffs, which saw the Gulf Cooperation Council states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deed with 10% tariffs. Other Mideast nations look higher tariffs, similar Iraq astatine 39% and Syria astatine 41%.

“With these measures and the expected retaliatory measures that could beryllium adopted by different countries, the stableness and predictability of planetary commercialized could beryllium undermined,” the accounting steadfast PwC said successful an advisory to its Mideast clients.

Losses expanse region

The Dubai Financial Market speech fell 6% aft it opened for the week, with marketplace person Emaar Properties down 9%. The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange fell 4%.

Markets that opened Sunday saw losses arsenic well. Saudi Arabia's Tadawul banal speech fell implicit 6% successful trading then, with further losses of 3% aft opening Monday. The elephantine of the exchange, Saudi Arabia's state-owned lipid institution Aramco, fell implicit 5% connected its ain connected Sunday, with much losses Monday, wiping distant billions successful marketplace capitalization for the world's sixth-most-valuable company.

The driblet successful Aramco, whose shares besides powerfulness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's expansive plans to reshape the kingdom's economy, ties straight backmost to the wide terms of oil.

Last week, OPEC+ members Algeria, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Oman, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE agreed to velocity up the instauration of much lipid into the market. This period marks the archetypal lipid accumulation summation by the radical since 2022.

“OPEC+ has shifted its marketplace absorption strategy from a dependable incremental summation successful output to monthly announced targets, bringing guardant higher output levels for May this year,” an investigation published Monday by the state-majority-owned Emirates NBD Bank of Dubai said. “That volition permission lipid markets grasping with further volatility arsenic they measure the antagonistic interaction connected planetary commercialized of the tariffs announced by the Trump administration.”