Gulf equity investors have lost a staggering $371 billion (Dh1.3 trillion) since the collapse of the US Lehman Brothers bank in mid September, a daily loss of nearly $7.5bn, official figures showed yesterday.

Saudi Arabia's Tadawul, by far the largest and busiest bourse in the Middle East, emerged as the main victim, plummeting by more than $150bn.

Other bourses in the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) has also suffered from their largest loss in such a period of time.

From around $950.99bn on September 14, the combined market capitalisation of the seven GCC bourses tumbled to nearly $579.99bn on November 20, a staggering loss of $371bn in just 65 days, showed the figures by the joint Arab stocks data base at the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF).

Experts said this means the average daily loss stood at around $7.5bn since that period included only 50 days of trading sessions.

A breakdown showed Saudi Arabia plunged by around $155bn while the loss stood at $54bn in Kuwait, $50bn in Dubai, $40bn in Qatar, $26bn in Abu Dhabi, and nearly $5bn each in Bahrain and Oman.

Experts have blamed a host of factors for such crashes, including the global financial crisis, a massive foreign sell offs, psychological fear in most regional and global markets, and panic by small investors.

The decline since the Lehman demise extended a sharp fall in most regional stock markets since the start of summer, the market capitalisation of the GCC exchanges dipping by nearly $563bn since June 30.

The seven bourses had steadily climbed in the first four months of 2008 before they began to dip in the following months on contrast with the strong performance of listed companies and the regional economies.

GCC bourses suffered from their biggest daily capitalisation loss of around $40bn on September just after news of the Lehman collapse. The UAE bourses alone dived by around $6bn while Saudi Arabia collapsed by nearly $26bn. Qatar plummetted by $7bn.