Tadawul: Mobily gains 1.7%; petchems fall back after rally

13/10/2015 05:19 AST

A recovery of Saudi Arabia’s market stalled on Monday as the key index ran into technical resistance.

The Tadawul All-Share index, which had risen sharply in the past several days on the back of rebounding petrochemical stocks, edged down 0.1 percent to 7,817 points after hitting a chart barrier at 7,812-7,953 points, its highs in September and at the end of August.

Leading petchem Saudi Basic Industries slipped 1.1 percent and National Commercial Bank, the Kingdom’s largest bank by assets, fell 0.9 percent after it posted a net profit of SR1.99 billion in the three months to Sept. 30. Analysts polled by Reuters had on average forecast NCB would make SR2.23 billion.

But telecommunications operator Mobily gained 1.7 percent in active trade as it resumed trading after a one-day suspension in response to preliminary decisions of the market regulator’s Committees for the Resolution of Securities Disputes.

Mobily said late on Sunday that a committee had rejected investors’ demands for compensation for losses suffered as a result of the company’s restatements of its earnings. This was taken as positive news by investors, though the company’s legal and business problems are not over.

Oil shipper Bahri continued a strong recovery triggered by last week’s rebound of oil prices; it climbed a further 3.7 percent.

In Qatar, the index edged up 0.1 percent though Dlala Brokerage jumped 6.4 percent in unusually heavy trade.

Dubai’s index rose 0.3 percent as commodities shipper Gulf Navigation jumped 6.0 percent. Abu Dhabi’s index edged down 0.1 percent.

Arab News