Mideast Stocks: Stock markets in Gulf end mixed, oil near six-week low

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Stock markets in the Gulf ended mixed on Wednesday as corporate earnings failed to cheer investors amid a retreat in crude prices.

Oil prices - a catalyst for the Gulf's financial markets - traded around their lowest level in six weeks, as the northern hemisphere gets deeper into summer with limited signs of the expected fuel consumption surge the period usually sees.

Prices also suffered due to continued concern that the economic slowdown in China, the world's biggest crude importer, would weaken global oil demand.

Dubai's main share index gained 0.3%, led by an 11.8% surge in Dubai's Parkin, which oversees public parking operations in the Emirates, ahead of its earnings announcement on Friday. Among other gainers, Mashreqbank, which is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings on Thursday, advanced 5.5%.

In Abu Dhabi, the index added 0.3%, with the country's biggest lender First Abu Dhabi Bank rising 0.3% ahead of its earnings announcement on Wednesday. Elsewhere, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank closed 0.7% higher. Post trading hours, the lender reported quarterly net profit of 1.58 billion dirhams ($430 million), a 29% increase year-on-year. Saudi Arabia's benchmark index ended flat.

Oil giant Saudi Aramco dropped 0.4%, while Saudi Telecom Company gained 0.6% after reporting quarterly net profit of 3.03 billion riyals ($808 million), up from 3.01 billion riyals a year earlier.

Outside the Gulf, Egypt's blue-chip index fell 0.4%, hit by a 2.6% decline in E-Finance For Digital and Financial Investments. Egyptian economic growth will be slightly slower this year than thought in April following a $8 billion agreement signed with the International Monetary Fund in March, a Reuters poll showed on Monday.