The Saudi stock market's first quarter figures released this week are reflective of continued optimism in national economy, analysts said yesterday.

The market showed positive growth in the first quarter of this year. The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) has increased 4.77 percent (324.51 points) so far this year.

At the end of the first quarter, the index dropped 709.42 points (9.05 percent) over the close of the same period of the previous year at 7,125.73 points.

Commenting on the latest Tadawul data, Fawaz Al-Fawaz, a Riyadh-based economic consultant, said: "Essentially, the Saudi stock market has moved up on two grounds for. One — it is somewhat of technical nature given the fact that market is trying to catch up to US market given the similar interest rate environment. And second — the market is somewhat positive given the outlook for Q1 positive outlook ."

The highest close level for the index during the period was 7,177.62 points as on March 27.

Jarmo T. Kotilaine, a regional analyst, told Arab News: "Q1 was a generally positive quarter with a nearly 5 percent gain YTD. This was behind the UAE and Kuwaiti bourses which achieved double-digit growth but reflective of continued optimism in the economy."

He said one of the factors weighing more heavily in Saudi Arabia was the recurrent concern over oil demand erosion in the face of global growth challenges, most notably the euro zone.

Although the market reaction globally to the Italian elections and the Cyprus crisis has been fairly measured, these developments do mark a potential turning point for the European crisis.

At the same time, Kotilaine said: "Saudi oil production in recent months has been clearly below the levels recorded in 2012. This greater caution may have played into to significant drops in trading volumes."

Total equity market capitalization at the end of the first quarter reached SR 1.45 trillion ($ 387.32 billion), dropping by 5.66 percent over the same period of the previous year.

The Tadawul report said total value of shares traded in Q1 reached SR 368.49 billion ($ 98.26 billion), falling by 46.18 percent over the same period of the previous year.

The total number of shares traded reached 13.26 billion shares for the first quarter compared to 30.16 billion shares traded during the same period in 2012, decreasing by 56.03 percent.

The total number of transactions fell 31.96 percent to 9.17 million compared to 13.48 million trades during the first quarter of 2012.