Investors were more aggressive in buying stocks as more than 781.5 million shares exchanged hands on the Saudi stock market. The 50-day average for trading volume is closer to 428.61 million shares.

On June 3, 2008, when Alinma Bank started trading, the highest volume of 749.4 million shares was recorded.

Tadawul's impetus resulted from another surge of buying from a pack of investors. Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) inched up further to close at 7,539.7 points yesterday. It earlier slid into red territory and subsequently traveled sideways throughout the day and finally edged up to add nominal 5.97 points or 0.08 percent for the day.

High trading activity accelerated and strengthened the market against the profit takers. A substantial liquidity of SR15.98 billion was flowed at Tadawul, a 10.8 percent increase over the previous day's SR14.4 billion.

One of the best performing sectors was Energy & Utilities, which accumulated 212 points and rose to 3.86 percent. On the other hand, Cement sector became the worst performer, trimming 132.63 points or 2.03 percent for the day.

Major Cement stocks fell down with Southern Province Cement Co., which declined 4.68 percent and appeared as the biggest loser among all Saudi stocks.

The market breadth was slightly negative with 68 stocks witnessing declines against 64 stocks witnessing advances.

Al-Ahsa Development Co. and Saudi Integrated Telecom Company dominated the top gainers chart. Prices of both rallied to a maximum growth of 10 percent to close at SR23.1 and SR39.2 respectively.