JEDDAH/AMMAN: Saudi shares plunged for the fourth week in a row last week, bringing to about 20 percent the total loss of the Saudi stock exchange in a month.

The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) shed 3.44 percent last week, closing at 7,133.47 points. TASI is currently 35.38 percent lower than the year’s start.

The stock market turnover also fell to SR15.86 billion last week compared to SR22.64 billion in the previous week.

Alujain Corp. was the top gainer last week as its shares jumped 13.26 percent to SR29.90.

The insurance companies suffered badly last week. Saudi Indian Company for Cooperative Insurance shares dropped 21.57 percent to SR50, AlAhli Takaful Co. by 20 percent to SR56, SABB Takaful by 17.12 percent to SR43.10 and Saudi IAIC Cooperative Insurance Co. by 15.67 percent to SR63.25.

In the telecom sector, shares in Saudi Telecom Co. (STC) fell to SR59.50, Etihad Etisalt to 42.90 and Zain KSA to SR18.05 last week.

The Riyadh-based Bakheet Investment Group (BIG) expected the Saudi market to “react positively” to the US rescue plan, while investors keep an eye on the third quarter results which usually start to come out in the first week of October.

The US bailout plan is expected to have a “positive impact” on Middle East markets, which plummeted under the “psychological” fallout of the US financial crisis over the past few weeks, financial analysts said yesterday.

“We believe the US rescue plan will have a positive impact not only on global markets but also on Middle East markets,” Wajdi Makhamreh, chief operating officer at the Sanabel International Holding said.

“The scheme will help evade the collapse of the world financial system. However, doubts will continue to be raised as to the effectiveness of the salvage blueprint,” he said.

US Congressional leaders said Thursday that they had reached an agreement on the fundamentals of a proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial system. “Arab bourses suffered a lot over the past couple of weeks as a result of a psychological sentiment rather than logical reasons in the wake of the collapse of the US Lehman Brothers bank and its repercussions,” Makhamreh said.

He expected Arab markets would assume “vigilance” in the coming weeks as investors monitor the impact of the US rescue plan on global markets.

Jordanian shares were volatile last week, as investors apparently came under the impact of the negative sentiment in other regional markets.

The All-Share Price Index of the Amman Stock Exchange gained 3.15 percent last week, closing at 3,984 points, according to the ASE weekly report.

Kuwait’s KSE all-share price index declined 1.7 percent, closing at 12,569 points.

The benchmark of the United Arab Emirates stock exchanges of Dubai and Abu Dhabi gained 1.8 percent last week, closing at 4,587 points. Egypt’s CASE-30 index, which measures the performance of the market’s 30 most active firms, shed 1.7 percent to close week at 6,945 points.

The GulfBase GCC Index declined 1.19 percent to 5,249.64 points. The value of GCC traded shares plunged 11.63 percent to $11.44 billion but volume increased by 3.08 percent to 4.92 billion of shares.

Fourth successive fall

The BMG Saudi Index maintained its downtrend last week, recording the fourth successive drop week-on-week by 3.8 percent to 384.89 points. The total market turnover also depreciated week-on-week, given that the market had four trading sessions, versus five in the previous week, because of the market’s holiday on the occasion of the Kingdom’s National Day on Tuesday. The total market turnover went down by 32.5 percent to SR6.7 billion ($1.8 billion) compared to SR9.9 billion ($2.6 billion) registered last week. The number of shares traded also went down by 32.2 percent from 241.2 million shares to 163.5 million shares. The average price-earnings (P/E) ratio for 2007 earnings was 18.9 times, while the price-to-book (P/B) ratio was 4.0 times.

All the sectors recorded losses.

The beta coefficient for the sectors was 1.05 for the industrial sector, 0.98 for the services sector, 0.94 for the banking sector, 0.76 for the telecommunications sector, and 0.37 for the insurance sector.

Twenty-seven shares depreciated last week, whilst only three went up. The leading share, Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) was the best performer in terms of turnover, which reached SR2.05 billion, with its share price going down by 4.45 percent to SR102.