Gulf Markets Swing on Earnings Drama & Trump’s Tariff Tantrums—Who’s Blinking First?
Gulf markets played tug-of-war today as investors juggled corporate scorecards and geopolitical fireworks. Trump’s tariff threats—back like a bad sequel—sent tremors through trading floors.
Earnings season giveth, politics taketh away.
Oil-rich bourses flip-flopped between green and red like a day trader hopped up on Arabic coffee. No clear winners—just the usual suspects hedging bets while Wall Street snickers from the sidelines.
Bonus jab: Another day, another ‘market-moving’ tweet from Mar-a-Lago. Someone check if the SEC’s mute button is broken.
Qatar inches up as Egypt breaks records with IMF boost
Qatar went the other way. Its main stock index ROSE 0.2%, powered by a 1.2% gain in Industries Qatar, a petrochemical giant. That modest climb brought the market closer to a two-year high, and the mood stayed steady thanks to strength in the chemical sector. Unlike Saudi Arabia, Qatar didn’t have any major corporate shake-ups or bad news dragging it down.
Things were even more upbeat in Egypt, where the EGX30 index climbed 0.7% and hit a record high. That came as most sectors rallied on growing Optimism around Egypt’s stalled $8 billion IMF deal.
Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk told reporters Wednesday that he was “confident” Egypt WOULD meet its reform milestones and wrap up the delayed review by September or October.
At the same time, Bonyan Development and Trade launched an IPO that was oversubscribed over 33 times, which sent another wave of buying across the board.
And if that wasn’t enough, Bloomberg reported that Egypt plans to raise $4 billion through international bonds over the next year. Reuters couldn’t confirm the bond plan, but markets ran with it anyway.
ECB holds steady as banks prep earnings and Trump looms
In Europe, the focus is on whether banks can carry the earnings momentum. Citi called Q1 “remarkably resilient,” and now analysts expect Stoxx 600 EPS to finally turn positive on a yearly basis.
The weight is falling mostly on banks, because luxury, auto, and energy stocks have been seeing downward revisions. Unicredit will post results on Wednesday. The Italian lender has been in the headlines after upping its stake in Commerzbank to 20%, but also hitting a wall in its push to buy Banco BPM.
A court blocked the deal, demanding more clarity before allowing it to proceed. Still, Unicredit’s stock is up more than 50% this year, which is giving CEO Andrea Orcel some breathing room.
Over at the European Central Bank, President Christine Lagarde is expected to hold interest rates at 2% during Thursday’s meeting. Five ECB policymakers told Reuters that the meeting won’t be derailed by Trump’s latest trade threats. But there’s a warning. If the U.S. actually pushes ahead with a 30% tariff on EU imports, it’s widely expected that the ECB will be forced to cut rates.
Markets have until September 11 to measure the fallout. After this week’s session, the ECB takes its summer break.
One more warning came from Deutsche Bank, whose macro strategist told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe that inflation risks in Europe are being ignored. He said there’s “a remarkable complacency across key assets,” and that traders aren’t factoring in the full impact of Trump’s tariffs yet. With the August 1 deadline looming for U.S.-EU talks, he warned that if things fall apart last minute, the result could be a very sharp market reaction.
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