Petrochem shares up 30.5% on debut

09/08/2009 00:00 AST

The Saudi stock market closed largely flat on Saturday and debuting National Petrochemical Company (Petrochem) failed to make any major impact.

The main Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) inched up 0.13 percent to close at 5,777.38 points as other Gulf Cooperation Council markets were closed for holidays on Saturday.

Seven sectors closed with losses ranging from 0.06 percent in both the Real Estate and Petrochemical sectors, to 0.70 percent in the Multi-Investment sector. The 8 gaining sectors ranged from 0.04 percent in the Retail sector to 0.82 percent in the Media sector. Overall market breadth was negative, with 52 advancers and 61 decliners registering an AD ratio of 0.85, the Jeddah-based Financial Transaction House said in its daily market commentary on Saturday.

The SR10 Petrochem shares opened at SR13.20 and reached as high as SR13.60 and low as SR12.85 before closing at SR13.05, up 30.5 percent on the first day of trading. Petrochem shares worth SR1.46 billion were traded on Sunday at the volume of 111,653,840.

Petrochem, which is trading in the Petrochemical Industries sector, became the 132nd company to be traded on Tadawul.

The companies which were in the red in the Petrochemical Industries sector were Methanol Chemicals Company, Nama Chemicals Co. Saudi Industrial Investment Group, Yanbu National Petrochemical Co. Saudi International Petrochemical Co. and Advanced Polypropylene Co. The top gainer on Saturday was Al-Sagr Cooperative Insurance Co. as its shares jumped 9.80 percent to close at SR70.

The stock market turnover was nearly SR4.18 billion on Saturday.

Arab News