Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz) has underlined that Gulf Cooperation Council equity markets received almost the same level of attention in first half of 2012.

In a report, themed GCC Research Statistics, said that 19 brokers have conducted and published 218 researches on 89 companies during the half, compared to 208 research notes published in the second half of 2011.

It added that 13 percent of all GCC companies, which make up nearly 69 percent of the total market cap, have received research coverage.

The Saudi market got the lion share in the researches, accounted for 44 percent of research notes, followed by the UAE with 18 percent.

Qatar Telecom and Almarai topped the list of companies, which attracted researches, with 9 research notes followed by Savola Group Company and Eithad Etisalat.
The latter and Riyad Bank feature among stocks with the highest upside potential going forward, as per broker recommendations.

As for market capitalization coverage, Qatar has the highest coverage in the first half of 2012 (86 percent) followed by Saudi Arabia and Oman with 79 percent and 73 percent market cap coverage, respectively. On a quarterly basis also, Qatar leads in terms of market cap coverage with 84 percent in the 1st and 2nd Quarters.

Markaz report indicates that Qatar was the most researched country in terms of percentage of companies covered to total companies listed in the country. About 27 percent of all listed companies in Qatar, accounting for 86 percent of the local market capitalization, received coverage in 1H12.

Banking continues to be the most researched sector with 65 notes; 52 of these 65 were "Buy" calls, 12 were "Hold" calls, while the remaining were "Sell". After Banking, Telecommunications sector was the most researched sector, with 32 "Buy" recommendations and 2 "Sell" calls. The Industrial Services sector received only 3 "Sell" recommendations.

Markaz strategic research is positioned to provide the very best investment ideas to its clients. It aims to be thematic in selecting research ideas with a clear focus on investment actions and merits.

Being a regionally focused company, the research also is biased towards GCC and Mena region and issues confronting the region. However, the aim is to continuously benchmark the region with other developed and emerging market peers in order to obtain the requisite positioning.

Markaz research team uses highly specialized databases, both outsourced and developed in-house, in order to be statistically rich in its presentations and analysis. The high-powered analyst team also treasures the usage of advanced quantitative finance techniques to the extent they can be successfully adapted to the region.