Gulf stocks steady as strong earnings offset US tariff jitters
Despite global jitters, strong results from regional heavyweights and steady oil prices helped offset external headwinds.
Saudi Arabia's benchmark index (.TASI), opens new tab edged 0.2% higher, on course to snap its longest downturn in nearly two years, with financials driving the gains.
Saudi National Bank (1180.SE), opens new tab - the country's biggest lender by assets - gained 1.5% and Al Rajhi Bank (1120.SE), opens new tab, the largest sharia-compliant bank, jumped over 1% after their strong second-quarter results lifted sentiment across the banking sector.
However, the petrochemical giant SIPCHEM (2310.SE), opens new tab fell 3.7% after posting a rare loss, breaking a five-year streak of profitability.
Dubai's benchmark index (.DFMGI), opens new tab eased 0.1%, pressured by broad-based declines as investors locked in gains after a recent multi-year rally.
Meanwhile, Air Arabia (AIRA.DU), opens new tab surged 5.1% to a fresh record high after securing a bid to operate a new Saudi low-cost national airline, set to launch by 2030.
Abu Dhabi Index (.FTFADGI), opens new tab posted a decline ahead of key upcoming earnings as investors looked for cues on the market's next direction.
Qatar's stock index (.QSI), opens new tab added 0.1%, nearing a two-year peak, led by a 1.5% rise in Commercial Bank (COMB.QA), opens new tab.
Among other gainers, Qatar International Islamic Bank (QIIB.QA), opens new tab advanced 1.4% on a year-on-year rise of 5.2% in its six-month profit.
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BBC News
24 minutes ago
- BBC News
EU and US agree trade deal, with 15% tariffs for European exports to America
The United States and European Union have reached a trade deal, ending a months-long standoff between two of the world's key economic make-or-break negotiations between President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen in Scotland, the pair agreed on a blanket US tariff on all EU goods of 15%. That is half the 30% import tax rate Trump had threatened to implement starting on Friday. Trump said the 27-member bloc would open its markets to US exporters with zero per cent tariffs on certain der Leyen also hailed the deal, saying it would bring stability for both allies, who together account for almost a third of global trade. Trump has threatened tariffs against major US trade partners in a bid to reorder the global economy and trim the American trade well as the EU, he has also struck tariff agreements with the UK, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam, although he has not achieved his goal of "90 deals in 90 days".Sunday's deal was announced after private talks between Trump and Von der Leyen at his Turnberry golf course in South - who is on a five-day visit to Scotland - said following a brief meeting with the European Commission president: "We have reached a deal. It's a good deal for everybody.""It's going to bring us closer together," he der Leyen also hailed it as a "huge deal", after "tough negotiations".Under the agreement, Trump said the EU would boost its investment in the US by $600bn (£446bn), purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of American military equipment and spend $750bn on investment in American liquified natural gas, oil and nuclear fuels would, Von der Leyen said, help reduce European reliance on Russian power sources."I want to thank President Trump personally for his personal commitment and his leadership to achieve this breakthrough," she said."He is a tough negotiator, but he is also a dealmaker."The US president also said a 50% tariff he has implemented on steel and aluminium globally would stay in sides can paint this agreement as something of a the EU, the tariffs could have been worse: it is not as good as the UK's 10% tariff rate, but is the same as the 15% rate that Japan the US it equates to the expectation of roughly $90bn of tariff revenue into government coffers – based on last year's trade figures, plus there's hundreds of billions of dollars of investment now due to come into the US. How are trade deals actually negotiated?They made America's clothing. Now they are getting punished for itIn pictures: President Trump's private visit to Scotland Trade in goods between the EU and US totalled about $975.9bn last year. Last year the US imported about $606bn in goods from the EU and exported around $ imbalance, or trade deficit, is a sticking point for Trump. He says trade relationships like this mean the US is "losing".If he had followed through on tariffs against Europe, import taxes would have been levied on products from Spanish pharmaceuticals to Italian leather, German electronics and French EU had said it was prepared to retaliate with tariffs on US goods including car parts, Boeing planes and Prime Minister Keir Starmer plans his own meeting with Trump at Turnberry on will be in Aberdeen on Tuesday, where his family has another golf course and is opening a third next president and his sons plan to help cut the ribbon on the new fairway.
Reuters
24 minutes ago
- Reuters
Out-gunned Europe accepts least-worst US trade deal
LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) - In the end, Europe found it lacked the leverage to pull Donald Trump's America into a trade pact on its terms and so has signed up to a deal it can just about stomach - albeit one that is clearly skewed in the U.S.'s favour. As such, Sunday's agreement on a blanket 15% tariff after a months-long stand-off is a reality check on the aspirations of the 27-country European Union to become an economic power able to stand up to the likes of the United States or China. The cold shower is all the more bracing given that the EU has long portrayed itself as an export superpower and champion of rules-based commerce for the benefit both of its own soft power and the global economy as a whole. For sure, the new tariff that will now be applied is a lot more digestible than the 30% "reciprocal" tariff which Trump threatened to invoke in a few days. While it should ensure Europe avoids recession, it will likely keep its economy in the doldrums: it sits somewhere between two tariff scenarios the European Central Bank last month forecast would mean 0.5-0.9% economic growth this year compared to just over 1% in a trade tension-free environment. But this is nonetheless a landing point that would have been scarcely imaginable only months ago in the pre-Trump 2.0 era, when the EU along with much of the world could count on U.S. tariffs averaging out at around 1.5%. Even when Britain agreed a baseline tariff of 10% with the United States back in May, EU officials were adamant they could do better and - convinced the bloc had the economic heft to square up to Trump - pushed for a "zero-for-zero" tariff pact. It took a few weeks of fruitless talks with their U.S. counterparts for the Europeans to accept that 10% was the best they could get and a few weeks more to take the same 15% baseline which the United States agreed with Japan last week. "The EU does not have more leverage than the U.S., and the Trump administration is not rushing things," said one senior official in a European capital who was being briefed on last week's negotiations as they closed in around the 15% level. That official and others pointed to the pressure from Europe's export-oriented businesses to clinch a deal and so ease the levels of uncertainty starting to hit businesses from Finland's Nokia ( opens new tab to Swedish steelmaker SSAB ( opens new tab. "We were dealt a bad hand. This deal is the best possible play under the circumstances," said one EU diplomat. "Recent months have clearly shown how damaging uncertainty in global trade is for European businesses." That imbalance - or what the trade negotiators have been calling "asymmetry" - is manifest in the final deal. Not only is it expected that the EU will now call off any retaliation and remain open to U.S. goods on existing terms, but it has also pledged $600 billion of investment in the United States. The time-frame for that remains undefined, as do other details of the accord for now. As talks unfolded, it became clear that the EU came to the conclusion it had more to lose from all-out confrontation. The retaliatory measures it threatened totalled some 93 billion euros - less than half its U.S. goods trade surplus of nearly 200 billion euros. True, a growing number of EU capitals were also ready to envisage wide-ranging anti-coercion measures that would have allowed the bloc to target the services trade in which the United States had a surplus of some $75 billion last year. But even then, there was no clear majority for targeting the U.S. digital services which European citizens enjoy and for which there are scant homegrown alternatives - from Netflix (NFLX.O), opens new tab to Uber (UBER.N), opens new tab to Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab cloud services. It remains to be seen whether this will encourage European leaders to accelerate the economic reforms and diversification of trading allies to which they have long paid lip service but which have been held back by national divisions. Describing the deal as a painful compromise that was an "existential threat" for many of its members, Germany's BGA wholesale and export association said it was time for Europe to reduce its reliance on its biggest trading partner. "Let's look on the past months as a wake-up call," said BGA President Dirk Jandura. "Europe must now prepare itself strategically for the future - we need new trade deals with the biggest industrial powers of the world."
Reuters
24 minutes ago
- Reuters
Euro gains as investors cautiously welcome US-EU trade deal
NEW YORK, July 27 (Reuters) - Investors cautiously embraced news of a trade deal on Sunday between the U.S. and European Union that is expected to bring clarity for companies and some certainty to markets ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's Friday tariffs deadline. The euro rose against the U.S. dollar , up 0.27% at $1.177. The currency also gained 0.2% against both the pound and the Japanese yen . Trump announced the United States has struck a framework trade deal with the EU that includes a 15% tariff on EU goods entering the U.S. and significant EU purchases of U.S. energy and military equipment. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the deal includes "cars, semiconductors and pharmas." The deal is similar to parts of the framework agreement the U.S. clinched with Japan last week. "It's really in line with the Japan deal, and I assume investors will view it positively as they viewed the Japan deal," said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey. Optimism over easing trade tensions broadly helped push U.S. stocks to record highs last week and lifted European shares to their highest since early June. Trump's April 2 "Liberation Day" announcement of sweeping global tariffs sent stocks plunging in the immediate aftermath, due to spiking fears about a recession that have since faded. "I don't think equities in particular needed much of an excuse to rally and now they've got one," said Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone in London. Still, investors have been bracing for increased volatility heading into August 1, which the U.S. has set as a deadline for raising levies on a broad swath of trading partners. "We will need to see how long the sides stick to the deal. From a market perspective, it is reassuring in the sense that having a deal is better than not having a deal," Eric Winograd, chief economist at investment management firm AllianceBernstein, said about the EU agreement. The announcement came after Von der Leyen traveled to Scotland for talks with Trump to push a hard-fought deal over the line.
