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Reuters
Saudi Arabia’s stock market ignored a huge investment conference in Riyadh and remained flat while Emaar Properties and contractor Drake & Scull helped Dubai to rebound on Tuesday.
The market barely reacted to bullish news from a major investment conference in the kingdom, which attracted hundreds of bankers, businessmen and government officials from around the world. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 32-year-old architect of reforms designed to end Saudi Arabia’s reliance on oil exports, announced a $500 billion plan to build a business and industrial zone that would extend into Jordan and Egypt.
The Saudi main index lost one point after the closing to 6,885 points, extending this week’s losses as the market was split between losers and gainers.
Saudi banks recovered from Monday’s losses with National Commercial Bank, the kingdom’s largest lender, rebounding 2.6 percent after dropping 4.78 percent. Alinma Bank was up 1.1 percent in heavy trade while Bank Aljazira rebounded 1.4 percent, having reported a 41 percent rise in third-quarter net profit to $60.80 million.
However, most of Saudi insurers fell for the second consecutive day with Metlife AIG ANB Cooperative Insurance dropping 1.4 percent, while Malath Insurance lost 1.8 percent. Oil prices helped petrochemical shares as PetroRabigh edged up 0.2 percent and Petrochem 0.6 percent. Mining firm Ma’aden rose 1.4 percent. The Dubai index rose 0.6 percent with Emaar adding 1.5 percent, recovering part of a 2.0 percent loss sustained on Monday after the company said it expected to sell 20 percent of property development unit Emaar Development LLC next month in an initial public offering. In Abu Dhabi, the index was almost flat at 4,496 points percent. Eshraq Properties rose 1.3 percent after reporting a third-quarter net profit of 685,000 dirhams.