People are scared of putting money in Qatar at the moment, and banks are under liquidity pressure.
That’s from Nabil Al Rantisi, the managing director of Abu Dhabi-based Mena Corp. Financial Services, and as you probably surmised, he’s describing the effect the ongoing rift between Doha and Riyadh is having on sentiment.
When last we checked in on Qatari assets, shares had fallen to the lowest since April 2013 as the sheikdom’s spat with Saudi Arabia worsened after Doha and Riyadh couldn’t agree on whose idea it was for Sheikh Tamim to talk to Mohammed bin Salman on the phone. And yes, that’s just as absurd as it sounds.
Well on Sunday, Qatari shares fell for a 10th session after falling 3.1% last week, the most since June, and the seventh straight weekly decline.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is turning into a disaster. Here’s a look at what’s happened since this whole thing started in early June:
And here’s the bigger picture:
“Qatar’s stock market headed for its tenth straight losing session on Sunday [after] Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said on Friday that Qatar was ready to sit at the negotiating table to try to end a dispute with its Gulf Arab neighbours,” Reuters writes, before noting that “in the absence of any positive response from the Saudi-led coalition which is boycotting Qatar, investors did not take the remarks as a sign that the dispute was moving closer to resolution.”
No, indeed they did not.
Amusingly, with Rex Tillerson and Trump apparently unable to do anything at all to break the stalemate (in fact, Trump seems to have made things worse by facilitating the phone call that caused tempers to flare anew a little over a week ago), the leader of the free world looks like she might step in.
“Germany is not a part of this conflict, but would like to help get this conflict resolved in such a way that all can keep their face,” Angela Merkel said, at after meeting with Sheikh Tamim on Friday in Berlin. “We view with concern the fact that 100 days since the start of the conflict no solutions can yet be seen,” Merkel told a press conference.
“Everyone in the entire world has lost their mind … they’ve all lost their minds. I can’t believe it”….
Anyway we can buy Qatari Index?
QAT