Tadawul drops 0.1 Qatar bourse dips 0.7

(MENAFN- Arab News) JEDDAH: Qatar underperformed other Gulf stock markets on concern that corruption inquiries into soccer's world body could endanger its hosting of the 2022 World Cup.
The main Saudi stock index inched down 0.1 percent while petrochemicals sector leader Saudi Basic Industries 2010.SE added 0.1 percent. Saudi Electricity Co. was the main drag on the index sliding 2.4 percent.
Oil prices which had dropped nearly 3 percent on Wednesday were flat by the time Saudi Arabia's stock market closed.
Miner Maaden slipped 0.1 percent as the price of copper one of its key products hit a six-week low on the London Metals Exchange.
Qatar's index was down 0.7 percent after a US law enforcement official said the FBI's investigation of FIFA included the award of World Cup hosting rights to Russia and Qatar.
However indicating that investors were becoming less sensitive to the issue trading volume in Doha fell by a third compared with Wednesday.
Dubai Parks and Resorts was the emirate's most traded stock in the emirate and surged 8.6 percent to AED1.14 after breaking through 1.08 dirhams the previous record high from which it retreated three times last month.
The company detailed its plans on Thursday and predicted 6.7 million ticketed visits to its theme parks during their first full year of operation in 2017.
Amlak Finance hit its daily 15 percent limit for a second day in a row.
The stock resumed trading this week after being suspended for nearly six years because of debt problems. Dubai's index has roughly doubled in that time.
Dubai-listed shares in Egypt's Orascom Construction climbed 0.8 percent after it posted net income of $9.5 million for the first quarter of 2015 without comparisons because it was previously part of another company. The same stock in Cairo fell 0.8 percent.
Most other Dubai stocks were weaker and the index rose just 0.1 percent. Abu Dhabi's bourse was nearly flat.
Egypt's bourse fell 1.4 percent and Telecom Egypt dropped 3.0 percent after saying it had decided not to buy back its treasury stock a move it had considered after its exclusion from MSCI's emerging markets index last month.
El Sewedy Electric surged 4.2 percent to 48.96 Egyptian pounds after saying it had won a 785 million euro portion of a 2 billion euro ($2.3 billion) deal to build a power plant south of Cairo in a consortium with Siemens.
Equity research house AlphaMena upgraded El Sewedy to 'buy' from 'add' with a six-month target price of 71.50 pounds citing improved first-quarter results and expected margin improvements.