may 28 reuters  most stock markets in the gulf ended lower on sunday as investors focus in on the prospects of more federal reserve interest rate hikes as the us closes in on a deal to raise its debt ceiling most gulf cooperation council countries including saudi have their currencies pegged to the dollar and generally follow the feds policy moves exposing the region relatively directly to any monetary tightening there saudi arabias benchmark index tasi lost 04 with al rajhi bank 1120se declining 1 and dr sulaiman alhabib medical services 4013se finishing 14 lower however oil giant saudi aramco 2222se added 02 prices of oil  a key catalyst for the gulfs financial markets  ticked up on friday as us officials appeared close to striking a debtceiling deal and as the market weighed conflicting messages about oil supply from russia and saudi arabia ahead of the next opec policy meeting in qatar the index qsi eased 03 hit by a 26 slide in telecoms firm ooredoo ordsqa  outside the gulf egypts bluechip index egx30 gained 05 led by an 113 jump in edita food industries efidca  on the other hand egypt has deferred payments for its large wheat purchases in some cases by months according to a government official and traders as the country grapples with a shortage of hard currency egypt is one of the worlds biggest wheat importers and uses the purchases to make heavily subsidised bread available to tens of millions of people any changes to its system of subsidies are politically very sensitive