Saudi Arabia’s benchmark Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) stepped down to 8,356.93 points on Sunday, reducing by 52.61 points or 0.63 percent for the entire session.

The index went 9 points above and 63 points below the break-even line during the day.

The market cap indices all finished to the downside. Most of the sector indices ended negatively, paring an aggregate of 988 points.

Media and Publishing sector posted the largest losses, falling 1.97 percent and closing at 2,133.06. Construction and Tourism sectors followed it, going down by 1.47 percent and 1.41 percent respectively.

On the other positive side, Telecommunication & Information Technology sector edged higher by 0.91 percent, closing at 1,973.65. Atheeb Telecom rose 5.75 percent but still closing below the par-value. The heavyweight Saudi Telecom closed up by 1.26 percent.

Saudi Arabian Fertilizers Co. (SAFCO) suffered worst of all heavyweights, slipping 2.46 percent to SR 140.44.

Market breadth with advance-decline ratio of 0.32:1 remained extremely weak.

Insurance companies led the top gainer and loser charts, with MedGulf Insurance and Amanah Cooperative Insurance, offsetting their performance by approx. seven percent positive-negative change.

Tadawul volume went up by 17.7 percent and traded 367.9 million shares as compared to previous day’s 312.6 million shares. The 50-day average for trading volume is closer to 276.4 million shares.

But equity turnover reached to SR6.9 billion, a slight decrease of five percent from previous level.

Trading activity was led by Mobile Telecommunications Co. Zain, which represented a one-fourth relative market share in terms of volume and 8.9 percent in terms of liquidity.

Interestingly, the company volume went 5.42 times high over its 50-day average, liquidating over 92 million shares and closing green with 3.05 percent surge.