JEDDAH, 11 December 2005 — After a record increase last week, Saudi stocks drifted lower yesterday. The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) closed 98.46 points down at 16,722.44.
The Banking index dropped 167.18 points at 41,301.11 as shares of major banks declined. Only Riyad Bank, Bank AlJazira and Samba Finacial Group shares managed to make some gains yesterday. The Saudi British Bank shares fell 2.06 percent to SR1,654.
The Industrial index edged lower by 419.94 points to 43.175.75 as shares of petrochemical giant Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) declined after rising 11.75 percent last week. SABIC shares dropped 1.21 percent yesterday to close at SR1,731. Most of the cement stocks were in the red yesterday. Only Saudi Cement shares rose slightly to SR684.50.
In the telecom sector, shares of Saudi Telecom Co. and Etihad Etisalat fell to SR897 and SR691.50, respectively. Saudi Electricity Co. (SEC) shares also dropped to SR140.75.
The Agriculture index edged higher 198.18 points to 6,930.30. Shares of Hail Agriculture jumped 7.52 percent to SR339.75, followed by Saudi Fisheries by 4.90 percent to SR514, Qassim Agriculture by 4.52 percent to SR317.75 and National Agriculture Development Co. by 2.47 percent to SR580.
Over SR26.58 billion worth of shares changed hands yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Kuwait-based Global Investment House (Global) yesterday held a special seminar at the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) on the listing of Al-Tameer Real Estate Investment Company (Tameer) scheduled to commence tomorrow.
Attending the seminar were: Najeeb Al-Saleh, Tameer’s vice chairman and managing director; Tamer Naseef, the financial controller at Tameer; Omar M. El-Quqa, Global’s executive vice president; and Mohamed Abdul Aziz, financial analyst. They gave a detailed explanation of Tameer’s operations and financial data. El-Quqa spoke briefly about the company’s history and the nature of its work and then addressed Global’s role in listing Tameer on KSE. “The listing coincides with the high activity that the market witnesses, either from the increase of the size of the current shares or the rise of value,” he said. “It also comes during an upsurge in big real estate projects across the region.”
He expressed his confidence in the healthy effect of listing new companies on KSE, and described it as a “healthy economic phenomenon, however, it must be studied and controlled by market laws and regulations.”
“I think there’s more room for new companies in Kuwait’s market. There’s no reason why it should be held back or restricted if all conditions apply. However, having said that, I should stress that the listing of a company should be based on sound and valid economic bases and not done just for the sake of being on the ticker,” he said.
