The reversal casts a shadow over prospects for initial public offerings from the Gulf and raises the prospect of state intervention to stem the selling. Intervention may take the form of Gulf countries injecting money from state investment funds into the markets, as Kuwait did last week after investors staged protests.

Emphasis added. State investment funds being rolled out to buy equities to support prices after investors protest.

That is not the way to build a healthy investing culture, to say the least. Nor a way to efficienctly mobilise savings.

Not sure, to be frank, how much Kuwait spent, perhaps a trivial amount, which might be worth it for the stabilising psychological value.

Now one item that amused me was the KSA angle:

Saudi press reports say the kingdom’s advisory Shura Council has asked the government to intervene to prevent a stock market crash, with one member demanding “reassuring statements from responsible officials about the present situation of the market”.

Atlhough this is a sin against .... well something, I have to confess I have a very hard time taking the Saudi market seriously. Above all the breathless commentary that CNBC Arabiyah and al Arabiyah manage over the market. It's complete nonsense, utterly opaque, and utterly Saudi.

We can count on corrupt interventions, in my opinion, to support Royals.

Now at the end here there is something interesting.

Philip Khoury, head of re-search for EFG-Hermes, a reg-ional investment bank, said yesterday’s falls were “a continuation of the moves we’ve seen since the beginning of the year . . . I don’t think it’s a secret that Gulf markets are expensive. This just happened to be the day.” He added that markets might have felt the effect of Arabic-language satellite television channels, where financial reporting has gone from virtually non-existent to extremely popular in recent years.

Although all the Arab media gurus such as Abu Aardvark like to focus on the political, I've personally been fascinated by the slow but persceptible emergence of business coverage in Arab media. Especially the Sats.

Ex al Jazeerah, which still has the sentiments of a 1970s Arab nationalist in this area.

I would love to see more, as a means of nurturing awareness of business and economic issues in the Arab world (besides the political angle which is usually dominated by ceaseless whinging on about how one Imperialist plot or another has taken the wind out of the Arab sails.... (well that's really more of a 70s kinda thing, they really used to write that sort of thing)).

One other note, an open rebuke from a UAE official: US wrong on ports, says UAE bank chief rather suggests UAE officialdome is a lot more pissed off than one might have suspected. They obviously are feeling the knife in the back tickel was not amusing. They lost no small chunk of prestige, both commercial and social. I suspect that Boeing is going to find its sales to Emirates will require harder incentives