Closing bell: TASI proceeds at snail’s pace, inches ahead 0.12% 

TASI’s total trading turnover of the benchmark index on Thursday was SR3.71 billion ($990 million), with 116 stocks of the listed 223 advancing and 83 retreating. 
TASI’s total trading turnover of the benchmark index on Thursday was SR3.71 billion ($990 million), with 116 stocks of the listed 223 advancing and 83 retreating. 
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Updated 26 January 2023

Closing bell: TASI proceeds at snail’s pace, inches ahead 0.12% 

Closing bell: TASI proceeds at snail’s pace, inches ahead 0.12% 

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index on Thursday edged up 12.50 points — or 0.12 percent — to close at 10,821.65.

While MSCI Tadawul 30 Index ended flat at 1,499.11, the parallel market Nomu booked a marginal decline at 19,252.34. 

TASI’s total trading turnover of the benchmark index on Thursday was SR3.71 billion ($990 million), with 116 stocks of the listed 223 advancing and 83 retreating. 

Building material firm Al Kathiri Holding Co. was the topmost gainer of the day, which rose 9.87 percent to SR51.20.  

Investment major Saudi Advanced Industries Co. was the next best grosser as its share price surged 5.85 percent to SR27.15.  

SAIC on Thursday informed the stock exchange that its shareholders approved increasing the company’s capital by 20 percent by distributing one bonus share for every five shares held to strengthen the capital base to enhance its future growth plans.  

The move would boost its current capital from SR500 million to SR600 million, according to a statement to Tadawul.  

The worst performer on Thursday was Almarai Co., which fell 3.11 percent to SR53. The other stocks that performed poorly included Arabian Pipes Co., Etihad Atheeb Telecommunication Co., Saudi Basic Industries Corp. and Al-Rajhi Co. for Cooperative Insurance. 

Among sectoral indices, 12 of the 21 listed on the stock exchange declined while the rest advanced. 

The Insurance Index was the best-performing index thanks to Saudi Reinsurance Co., which jumped 5.05 percent to SR15.40. On the other hand, Allianz Saudi Fransi Cooperative Insurance Co. moved up 4.01 percent to SR14. The other gainers were Saudi Enaya Cooperative Insurance Co., Aljazira Takaful Taawuni Co. and Al Alamiya for Cooperative Insurance Co. 

The Food and Beverages Index was the worst-performing sector as it rose 2.19 percent to 4,771.99, with five of the nine constituents falling. Even the gainers registered only a slight increase between 0.16 and 0.94 percent. 

On the announcements front, United Wire Factories Co., also known as Aslak, reported a 24 percent increase to an estimated net profit after Zakat and tax of SR7.3 million for 2022 from SR46.2 million a year earlier, mainly due to higher sales volume and profit margins.  

The company’s revenues increased 11.4 percent to SR1,026.40 million between January and December last year from SR921.33 million in the year-ago period. 

The release stated that the fourth-quarter net profit also soared 52 percent year on year to SR12 million. Aslak’s share price closed 1.22 percent higher to SR24.96. 

Meanwhile, the Saudi exchange also announced the listing and trading units of Alinma Hospitality REIT Fund on the primary market beginning Monday, Jan. 30, with the symbol 4349.  

The units will be allowed to fluctuate with an upper and lower limit of 30 percent a day and an upper and lower limit of 10 percent for static price fluctuation. 


Wheat falls 1.3 percent, corn down as Black Sea grain export deal extended

Wheat falls 1.3 percent, corn down as Black Sea grain export deal extended
Updated 8 sec ago

Wheat falls 1.3 percent, corn down as Black Sea grain export deal extended

Wheat falls 1.3 percent, corn down as Black Sea grain export deal extended

SINGAPORE: Chicago wheat and corn futures slid on Monday, with prices under pressure after a deal to export grains from war-torn Ukraine was extended over the weekend, easing some of the concerns over global supply, according to Reuters

Soybeans ticked lower on ample supplies from newly harvested record crop in Brazil.

“There wasn’t huge amount of doubt about the Black Sea deal but as far as today’s market action goes, I think the extension of the deal is putting pressure on prices,” said Phin Ziebell, an agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank.

The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade was down 1.3 percent at $7.01 a bushel, as of 0342 GMT, and corn lost 1 percent to $6.28 a bushel.

Soybeans eased 0.3 percent to $14.71-3/4 a bushel.

The deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain was renewed on Saturday for at least 60 days — half the intended period — after Russia warned any further extension beyond mid-May would depend on the removal of some Western sanctions.

The pact was brokered with Russia and Ukraine by the United Nations and Turkiye in July and renewed for a further 120 days in November. The aim was to combat a global food crisis that was fueled in part by Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine and Black Sea blockade.

Brazil’s National Energy Policy Council on Friday raised the country’s mandatory blend of biodiesel in diesel to 12 percent starting in April, Mines and Energy Minister, Alexandre Silveira said.

The measure is expected to favor mainly the soybean processing industry, since about 65 percent of the total biodiesel was produced with soyoil in 2022.

Brazil’s record soybean crop this season will allow the nation to boost exports to China while also increasing domestic soybean processing, Andre Nassar, the chief of Brazil’s oilseed lobby Abiove, told Reuters.

Large speculators switched to a net short position in Chicago Board of Trade corn futures in the week to March 7, regulatory data released on Thursday showed.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly commitments of traders report also showed that non-commercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, increased their net short position in CBOT wheat and raised their net long position in soybeans. 

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Saudi retail pharmacy chain Nahdi posts $236m profit for 2022 

Saudi retail pharmacy chain Nahdi posts $236m profit for 2022 
Updated 2 min 38 sec ago

Saudi retail pharmacy chain Nahdi posts $236m profit for 2022 

Saudi retail pharmacy chain Nahdi posts $236m profit for 2022 

RIYADH: Nahdi Medical Co., one of Saudi Arabia's leading retail pharmacy chains, recorded SR888 million ($236.40 million) in net profit for the fiscal year 2022, recording a 9.3 percent rise over the previous year. 

The company recorded revenue of SR8.6 billion for 2022, representing a 6.8 percent increase over the previous year. The company said the growth was primarily driven by the strong performance of the pharma segment, the return of religious tourism to normal levels, and other strategic initiatives. 

Commenting on the strong set of operational and financial results, CEO Yasser Joharji said: “2022 will be remembered as a landmark year in which we set new benchmarks, accelerated the delivery of our strategy, became a publicly listed company, grew our regional footprint, and added beats to the lives of more guests than ever before.” 

Nahdi’s gross profit for 2022 increased by 6.5 percent to reach SR3.52 billion, compared to last year. This helped the company deliver a gross margin of 40.9 percent maintaining the same level in 2021.   

During 2022, Nahdi maintained a zero-debt position and strong cash generation, with cash and cash equivalents sitting at over SR1 billion as of year-end. 

Its total assets increased to SR4.9 billion, a rise of 15.1 percent from SR4.3 billion at the end of 2021.   

“We remain on track to deliver on our medium-term financial guidance of achieving mid-single digit revenue growth and maintaining bottom-line margin in our core pharmaceutical retail business, while pursuing exponential growth in our emerging healthcare business, expanding our regional footprint, and launching our state-of-the-art IMDAD distribution center,” said Mohammed Alkhubani, the chief financial officer at Nahdi.   

Nahdi Medical Co.’s board of directors also declared a 30 percent cash dividend for the second half of 2022, at SR3 per share, the company said in a statement to Tadawul.  


COP28 could see move from negotiation to action, experts say

COP28 could see move from negotiation to action, experts say
Updated 10 min 17 sec ago

COP28 could see move from negotiation to action, experts say

COP28 could see move from negotiation to action, experts say
  • Annual climate change conference will be held in UAE later this year
  • Event ‘could really become a COP for action,’ think tank says

LONDON: The UAE’s hosting of the UN Climate Change Conference later this year could transform the future of the annual international forum and create momentum for it to become less about negotiation and more about action, experts said.

“COP28 could really become a COP for action. And it could start a transformation of what COPs are, from those meetings of negotiators, to trying to come up with a framework for climate governance around the world, into something that is largely about encouraging climate action,” said Karim Elgendy, associate fellow at the UK-based think tank Chatham House.

“We’re resolving many of the climate justice issues. We’ve resolved most of the Paris Agreement details and what we really have in front of us is ratcheting up and increasing ambition for carbon reduction targets around the world.

“COP28 has this opportunity where it could do exactly that and drive all the parties to push forward with a carbon reduction,” he added.

Elgendy was speaking at a briefing ahead of the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s final report in its sixth assessment cycle on Monday, in which it outlined some key findings and important implications for Middle East countries and expectations for the UAE’s COP28 presidency.

The UN body for assessing the science related to climate change, whose plenary sessions in Switzerland end on Sunday, will distill its findings from the six reports produced since 2015 and amass them in a single “synthesis” report — a comprehensive manual for tackling the crisis.

Elgendy said that Egypt’s hosting of last year’s COP27 placed a “little spotlight” on the region — as Cairo said it was hosting on behalf of Africa — but the Dubai conference would put a “real spotlight” on the Middle East and especially Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

The 2022 IPCC Working Group II Report described the regional impact of climate change for the Middle East as worrisome in relation to how local temperature and precipitation are projected to change. Current predictions indicate that in the coming decades conditions for working and living in the desert region will worsen. Persistent drought, water scarcity and rising sea levels could dramatically decrease food security in the region without swift, immediate large emission cuts.

In the Middle East, climate change has already increased temperatures and decreased rainfall. In Iran and Kuwait, more than half of the summer heat-related deaths between 1991 and 2018 could be attributed to climate change. In the coming decades, the number of days with temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius is expected to rise across the region.

The report said that countries in the Middle East would only be able to adapt to heatwaves and drought to a certain extent, and that hard physical limits to adaptation exist.

Sand- and dust storms have already become more frequent and intense and with further warming, they will become worse, increasing water scarcity and drought in the region.

Water scarcity will particularly affect Saudi Arabia, which could undermine food security, while in Bahrain and Iran, climate change will decrease fish catches, with consequences for food security and income generation. Global warming already threatens important fish species currently found on the coasts of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, and which are at high risk of local extinction.

As sea levels rise, more land will be submerged, flooded regularly, eroded, or become unsuitable for agriculture due to saltwater intrusion. The economic costs of sea level rise for Gulf countries, in terms of percentage of country-level GDP, would be among the highest in the world by the end of the century. The most threatened countries are Kuwait with 24 percent of GDP, Bahrain with 11 percent and the UAE with 9 percent, according to a study cited in the report.

“The MENA region has a variable rainfall regime that changes dramatically from one year to the next, which means we’re going to get longer droughts. And when it does rain it will rain in a flooding manner which could lead to stormwater management issues because of the region is not prepared for that,” Elgendy said.

“There are tertiary implications we should be concerned about, such as what will this do to social structures and movement, tensions over resources, migration,” he added.

“These may not be of primary concern right now but the region has to be prepared for what effect these implications could have environmentally and socially.”

Camille Ammoun, associate fellow at the American University of Beirut, said that in order to become a real climate actor, the GCC needed to genuinely diversify its economy away from fossil fuel extraction and from the oil economy.

“GCC countries, as high income countries, have economic if not environmental interest to engage in mitigation and adaptation,” he said.

“In terms of adaptation, the Gulf has been working on it for decades investing in several projects that are not necessarily labeled as adaptation projects, especially in infrastructures.

“When you talk about climate action, we talk about mitigation and adaptation, and I think we should focus more specifically, especially in the Gulf region, on diversification because it’s an enabler for climate action globally given the weight the GCC countries have in global diplomacy.”

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Oil Updates: Crude price falls; Goldman Sachs cuts Brent oil forecasts 

Oil Updates: Crude price falls; Goldman Sachs cuts Brent oil forecasts 
Updated 20 min 55 sec ago

Oil Updates: Crude price falls; Goldman Sachs cuts Brent oil forecasts 

Oil Updates: Crude price falls; Goldman Sachs cuts Brent oil forecasts 

RIYADH: Oil prices fell on Monday to their lowest in 15 months on concerns risks in the global banking sector may cause a recession that would lead fuel demand to decline and ahead of a potential hike in US interest rates this week. 

Brent crude futures for May settlement fell $2.32, or 3.2 percent, to $70.65 a barrel at 10:10 Saudi time. The contract earlier declined to as low as $70.56, its lowest since December 2021. 

Last week, Brent fell nearly 12 percent, its biggest weekly fall since December. 

US West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery was at $64.59 a barrel, down $2.15, or 3.2 percent. It earlier fell to $64.51, also its lowest since December 2021. The contract declined by 13 percent last week, its biggest weekly drop since last April.

Kuwait Oil Co. declares a state of emergency  

Kuwait Oil Co. on Monday declared a state of emergency due to an oil leak in the west of the country. 

Production was not affected because of the oil leak and there were no injuries reported, the company said in a statement. 

Iraq, OPEC stress need to coordinate to stabilize prices 

Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Haitham Al Ghai, Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries stressed the need to coordinate among oil-exporting nations to ensure prices do not fluctuate and impact both exporter and consumer countries, the Iraqi government said in a statement. 

Iraq is one of the founding members of OPEC. 

Meanwhile, Iraqi oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani on Sunday said his country is committed to maintaining its 220,000 barrel per day oil output in line with OPEC+ rates. 

Speaking during a conference in Baghdad, Abdel-Ghani also said Iraq is ready to increase production if required to do so by OPEC+. 

"We obliged some oil companies operating in the south to cut production to come in line with OPEC+'s agreed rates," he added. 

Goldman Sachs cuts Brent oil forecasts  

Goldman Sachs cut its forecasts for Brent crude oil futures over the weekend after prices slumped 15 percent since early March on banking and recession fears. 

The investment bank is now expecting Brent to average $94 a barrel in the next 12 months and $97 in the second half of 2024, down from $100 previously, it said in a note dated March 18. 

“Oil prices have plunged despite the China demand boom given banking stress, recession fears, and an exodus of investor flows,” the bank’s analysts said. 

“Historically, after such scarring events, positioning and prices recover only gradually, especially long-dated prices.” 

The bank has also lowered demand projections for Europe and North America in 2023 while raising that for China. 

This led to a 600,000 barrel per day cut for 2024 estimates while keeping the 2023 demand forecast unchanged. 

Shipments stopped at TotalEnergies' refineries  

Shipments of refined products from oil major TotalEnergies' French sites were blocked on Monday for the 13th day of strike action, while some refineries were operating at a reduced flow, a company spokesperson said. 

The industrial action is part of the nationwide movement against pension system changes lifting the retirement age two years to 64 that was forced through parliament without a vote last week. 

Production at the Normandy and Feyzin refineries was reduced on Monday as deliveries were blocked, with the Donges and La Mede refineries also seeing blocked shipments as the latter are offline for maintenance, the company said. 

(With inputs from Reuters)


New York Community Bank to buy failed Signature Bank

New York Community Bank to buy failed Signature Bank
Updated 20 March 2023

New York Community Bank to buy failed Signature Bank

New York Community Bank to buy failed Signature Bank
  • The 40 branches of Signature Bank will become Flagstar Bank. Flagstar is one of New York Community Bank’s subsidiaries
  • Signature Bank was the second bank to fail in this banking crisis, roughly 48 hours after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank

NEW YORK: New York Community Bank has agreed to buy a significant chunk of the failed Signature Bank in a $2.7 billion deal, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said late Sunday.
The 40 branches of Signature Bank will become Flagstar Bank, starting Monday. Flagstar is one of New York Community Bank’s subsidiaries. The deal will include the purchase of $38.4 billion in Signature Bank’s assets, a little more than a third of Signature’s total when the bank failed a week ago.
The FDIC said $60 billion in Signature Bank’s loans will remain in receivership and are expected to be sold off in time.
Signature Bank was the second bank to fail in this banking crisis, roughly 48 hours after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Signature, based in New York, was a large commercial lender in the tristate area, but had in recent years gotten into cryptocurrencies as a potential growth business.
After Silicon Valley Bank failed, depositors became nervous about Signature Bank’s health due to its high amount of uninsured deposits as well as its exposure to crypto and other tech-focused lending. By the time it was closed by regulators, Signature was the third largest bank failure in US history.
The FDIC says it expects Signature Bank’s failure to cost the deposit insurance fund $2.5 billion, but that figure may change as the regulator sells off assets. The deposit insurance fund is paid for by assessments on banks and taxpayers do not bear the direct cost when a bank fails.