JEDDAH, 18 November 2007 — The Saudi stock market suffered a fall yesterday after rising nearly 20 percent since touching a two-month low early last month. The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) dropped 52.43 points to 9,212.32.
The index is higher by 16.12 percent so far his year.
Nassir Al-Sadrani, a technical analyst, said that “the general index is currently facing some problems which disturb the course of the market. One of them is the index reaching close to 9,400 points accompanied by strong resistance. However, it also reflects the anticipation that the general index has the power to cross it. Another problem is the inability of the SABIC shares to cross the resistance level of SR170.”
Shares of Saudi Basic Industries Corp. declined by 2.08 percent to SR164.50 yesterday.
Khaled Al-Fahhad, a market observer, said “the Saudi stock market has overcome the stage of being upset by the fall in any company’s share prices. He said on the other hand that any slump in the market observed these days is the negative reflection of some technical performance that may follow a sharp rise in the share price in the market.”
In the banking sector, shares of Riyad Bank, Al-Rajhi Bank, Samba Financial Group and Bank Albilad fell yesterday.
Saudi Arabian Cooperative Insurance Co. and Saudi United Cooperative Insurance Co. shares jumped by 9.86 percent to SR122.50 and 4.21 percent to SR74.25, respectively.
Shares of 43 companies increased while 41 companies were in negative territory yesterday. The stock market turnover was over SR8.38 billion yesterday.
BMG Index Loses 7.2 Points
The BMG Saudi Index started off this week with a loss of 7.2 points to close at 514.3 points, down by 1.4 percent from Wednesday’s closing level. In addition, the market turnover went down by 15.7 percent to reach SR3.4 billion ($901 million) from SR4 billion recorded in Wednesday’s session.
The BMG Index sectors ended yesterday’s session on a mixed note. The agricultural and insurance sectors moved ahead by 0.9 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively, while the services sector dipped by a marginal 0.8 percent to be followed by the industrial sector which fell by 1.6 percent.
Despite the fact that prices of 12 stocks advanced, the index was not able to strengthen in yesterday’s session due to the decline in the share price of SABIC. The best performing stock was Hail Agriculture Development Company, which rose by 2.8 percent to SR36.75 per share.