Most Gulf markets may keep a firm tone on Thursday after oil prices shot up and the three main Wall Street stock indexes hit record closes overnight.
Brent crude oil futures hit $68.16 a barrel on Thursday morning, their highest level since May 2015. That is good news for the margins of many Saudi petrochemical companies and for Gulf governments which intend to use increased oil revenues to boost spending this year.
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Dubai’s longer-term technical outlook remains positive, with the index beginning to rebound from the bottom of an uptrend channel dating back to early 2016. Technically, a rise in coming months to near the top of the channel would not be surprising, and would take the index above 3,700 points.
Saudi Arabia’s index, last at 7,224 points, has for the past three weeks been testing technical resistance around 7,200 points, which was support in August and September. Any clean break would point up to at least the September peaks around 7,400 points.
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