investment in tadawul worthy enough ?!??

TheLegendLeads wrote:

I never came across any expat who had invested in Tadawul. In my personal opinion, investment in KSA can't be a wise decision until and unless it is properly linked to the visas. For instance, you may own a house here. At the completion of your annual work contract, your employer may ask you to leave the country. The only option you'll be left with to sell your property as peanuts and leave. This applies to any kind of investments except SAGIA. Great many things need to be changed before we consider investing.

No actually I do know a few expats who have already invested in Tadawul.. but again you are right the uncertainty and ambiguity definitely is an obstacle..

agent47 wrote:

Well I know someone (an expat) who is trading and managing a portfolio of a well known Saudi Family in the Tadawul Market.

What I have learnt is that it is not difficult to start trading in Tadawul as there are a number of companies that can assist you in setting up a trading account on Tadawul. Their procedures are very simple and straight forward for setting up an account and fees are nominal.

What I think the key skill to trade in this market are(and I dont have these skills) you need to be very proficient in the Arabic Language, you do need contacts within sectors of your interest (as information availability/transparancy is a big issue regardless of CMA) and you need a network (insider pals) to feed you news (related directly to from companies) that has not been made vanilla to the market. And you also need to be up to date on the government projects as they are (what I believe) the life blood of many businesses in KSA.

Herding is a very common trend as trades rely more on what is heard rather than what is read or reported. Beleive me an evening at a Big Saudi Family (casual Gahwa) gathering can feed you news you will never find in any of the local papers (that is where your networking and language skills lead you).

Hope this helps.

you just wrapped it up well ! and I got the hidden tact.. Networking is the key.. and being an Arab would definitely be an edge too as all the expats i know yet who have invested in tadawul are arabs or arab-americans/arab-canadians.. so i guess for non-arabs you need give it re-thought! but i heard profits are really huge and juicy if you know which place exactly to hit and i feel even a daily look and insight at market trends can give you some generalized ideas about that..

agent47 wrote:

Forex, Gold, Silver, Mutual funds. Even Tadawul could be best depending on your networks here.

No interest savings account. Real estate isn't an option.

Forex works best for me on my holding positions.

Outside Saudi you have unlimited options. You can also trade in Mutual funds back in your country, or trade on the stock market of your country.

well gold is also not an option here becoz rates here dont change exactly and abruptly as per the international market.. eg a few months back when gold hit international markets above $1800/oz then at that time in saudi markets the rate here for lets suppose 10g 24 karat biscuit was around SR 2000.. then a few days earlier when gold was as down as 1550 dollars/oz in international market the rate here for lets suppose 10g 24 karat biscuit was SR 1970 still.. (instead of it should have been around SR1800).. So they dont change the rates immediately and profit margin remains ambiguous.. and that leaves us no good options to invest around..

mikesharp wrote:

So what is the best option to invest in while in KSA? As far as I'm aware of there is no saving (interest) accounts, etc.

Would it be offshore banking? Or send the money back home? duh!


cheers
Mike

one of my expat friend have bought 2 apartments on loan on his own name and he thinks it as a good option as you wont be paying the exceedingly high house rents too and at the end of 6 years you will be able to sell it in market too ! so for those expats like us who have been living here for around 25 years with families and are supposed to live the next 10 plus years too over here should give it a thought.. he gave me alot of details in processing of whole loan and all that but he told only the white collar professions are allowed to buy flats yet.. another high profile expat in Toyota Co (ALJ) also told me that few bank people came to his office and offered all the loan etc to buy flat.. he is also giving it a serious thought to invest..