MENA Equity Research "1Q26 earnings wrap: Resilient guidance" Peace

Research evidence excerpt

MENA Equity Research "1Q26 earnings wrap: Resilient guidance" Peace

Global Research

18 May 2026ab

MENA Equity Research Equities

EMEA Emerging1Q26 earnings wrap: Resilient guidance

Financial

Jon Peace

Resilient results and outlook despite the Iran conflict Analyst

In this note, our MENA equity analysts summarise their key Q1takeaways with links to jon.peace@ubs.com

their single stock notes. Looking at 1Q26 revenue and earnings surprises versus +44-20-7567 0638

Bloomberg consensus, and considering that MENA stocks did not see significant Alexander Estefanous, CFA

earnings downgrades ahead of reporting, the outcome was quite resilient. Most sectors Analyst

reported revenue and/or earnings surprises with Transport, Energy, Utilities and alex.estefanous@ubs.com

Chemicals among the leaders. Among the laggards were Capital Goods, Financial +44-20-7567 0508

Services (exchanges), Metals & Mining, and Healthcare. Ulyana Lenvalskaya

Analyst

ulyana.lenvalskaya@ubs.com

YTD, the MSCI UAE, Saudi and Kuwait indices have seen slightly negative earnings

+971-443-64776

revisions, although these are not significant considering the Iran conflict, while the Saudi

market has seen positive earnings revisions. The Saudi market is up since the start of the Anna Kishmariya

Iran conflict, while UAE and Qatar are modestly lower. While we cut our Saudi GDP Analyst

anna.kishmariya@ubs.com

forecasts for 2026 after a weaker print in Q1, our scenario analysis still points to more

+44-20-7568 7999

downside risk for the UAE and other GCC economies. Our MENA High Frequency

Tracker note compiles weekly levels of activity for areas such as real estate transactions, Henri Patricot, CFA

shipping and airline flow, hotel occupancy rates, traffic volume and certain app usage Analyst

henri.patricot@ubs.com