The Borneo Post (Sabah)

Gulf markets sluggish in early trade as Saudi consolidat­es

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GULF stock markets were largely sluggish during the early trade yesterday, with Saudi Arabia consolidat­ing Thursday’s gains when it closed at its highest level in two weeks.

The main index was down by 0.1 per cent in the first hour of trading, with banks and petrochemi­cal shares falling.

Saudi Basic Industries Co (SABIC) was 0.9 per cent lower after reporting a 5.4 per cent rise in third quarter net product, which was slightly above analysts forecasts.

Al Rajhi Bank, which last week reported double digit third quarter profit growth, was down one per cent on profit taking.

National Commercial Bank (NCB) was down 0.8 per cent and Samba Financial Group was 1.1 per cent lower.

In a sign that global investors are still keen on Saudi Arabia, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, said it plans to more than double its investment­s in Saudi Arabia after it is included in the fund’s reference index soon.

The Dubai main index was down 0.2 per cent, weighed down by property and banking shares. Major developer Emaar Properties was down one per cent and rival DAMAC Properties fell two per cent.

Dubai Islamic Bank, which earlier this month posted a 10.8 per cent third quarter profit jump, was down 0.4 per cent.

Qatar bucked the trend with the main index up 0.2 per cent, supported by banking and energy shares. Qatar has been the best performing stock in the Gulf region, racking up gains of 19 per cent year-to-date, partly helped by moves by its biggest companies to increase foreign ownership limit to 49 per cent.

Qatar has seen an additional US$1.5 billion flowing into its stock exchange since increasing the foreign ownership limit to 49 per cent, the gulf country’s stock exchange market developmen­t director Mohsin Mujtaba said last week.

Qatar National Bank (QNB), the region’s largest bank, was up one per cent and Qatar Islamic Bank was trading 0.5 per cent higher.

Industries Qatar was 0.3 per cent higher.

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