Foreign investors pumped 450 million riyals ($120 million) into the Saudi stock market last week, generating a new indicator that reflects the attractiveness of Saudi markets to foreign capital market as the local market approaches emerging global market indices. According to official figures from the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul), the net purchase of foreign investors last week amounted to about $120 million in the Saudi market, while the net purchase of Saudi institutions amounted to 909 million SAR ($ 242.4 million) during the same period. Saudi Stock Exchange or Tadawul is the only stock exchange in Saudi Arabia. In this regard, Tadawul announced that foreign direct investment (FDI) net purchases during last week touched SAR196 million ($ 52.2 million). Foreign investments through swap agreements reached net purchases of SAR 310 million $ 82.6 million) during the same period. The Saudi Stock Market index closed yesterday at a slight increase of 0.2 percent, closing at 7,538 points, up by 17 points, amid trading worth SAR 3.4 billion ($ 906.6 million). SABIC, one of the worlds largest petrochemical companies, reported a net profit of SAR 3.67 billion ($ 978.6 million) in the fourth quarter of 2017, down 18.6 percent from a quarter earlier. In this regard, SABIC attributed the decrease in net profit to the decrease in the quantities produced and sold as a result of the regular scheduled maintenance of some factories, noting that during the same quarter of the previous year deferred tax assets were recognized.