The Capital Market Authority (CMA) announced yesterday that it has changed its trading hours on the stock market, the Arab News reported today. Effective October 28, 2006 trading hours will be from 11am to 3:30pm Saturday through Wednesday.

The CMA made the decision after a lengthy study of trading hours in an effort to organize and develop the market and keep it in line with international markets.

“This is a healthy change and it is in accordance with system followed by developing and developed markets,” Faisal Al-Sairafi, president and CEO of Financial Transaction House, told the Arab News. “It will decrease the hours spent by employees away from their jobs and in trading halls in the banks, but it will not guarantee that they would not be spending their time trading from their jobs through the phone or Internet, which will put pressure on the online system of trading.”

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