OREANDA-NEWS. March 18, 2015. Saudi Arabia's bourse pulled back further while Egypt stabilised in early trade on Tuesday after heavy profit-taking hit both markets in the previous session.

Saudi Arabia's main index fell 1.1 percent as petrochemical giant Saudi Basic Industries dropped 3.5 percent. The benchmark, which leads gains among major Middle East markets this year, dropped 2.0 percent in the previous session.

But PetroRabigh jumped 2.4 percent after the firm said it had signed loans worth around 19.4 billion riyals (\\$5.2 billion) for the expansion of its petrochemical complex in the kingdom, nearly two-thirds of the total cost.

Egypt's bourse, the region's second-best major performer this year after Saudi Arabia, edged up 0.2 percent after also dropping 2.0 percent on Monday.

Real estate company Amer Group rose 1.8 percent after posting a 670 percent increase in 2014 net profit, describing the result as a "return to a pre-Revolution growth trajectory" - that is, its business before the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.

Investment firm Pioneers Holding climbed 0.6 percent after proposing to increase the size of its planned rights issue to 851 million Egyptian pounds (\\$111.5 million) from 334 million pounds.