The Saudi stock market continued a positive drive last week, marking another weekly gain of 1.16 percent.
Despite closing flat for two days during the week, Saudi Arabia's benchmark Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) dug in at 7,177.62 and finished the week up over 82.14 points from its previous weekend close at 7,095.48 points.
The index touched an intra-week high of 7,186.24 and low of 7,075.65 levels, reflecting a reasonable trading range of 110.6 points last week.
Total market capitalization of Saudi stock exchange increased 1.3 percent to SR 1.47 trillion as compared to previous week's SR 1.45 trillion. The market cap indices all finished to the upside, with Small cap rising over two percent.
All sectors extended weekly gains except Cement and Media, which pared nearly 245 points jointly. Remaining 13 sectors accumulated more than 1,300 points last week.
Real Estate Development sector turned in a splendid performance among sectoral indices, surging 5.3 percent to close at 3,882.68. Petrochemical Industries and Agriculture sectors followed it, advancing 2.4 percent in a week.
Seven out of top ten large caps ended the week higher, with market leader SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) made the biggest jump over three percent, closing the week at SR 97.5. It also dominated the trading activity at Tadawul, contributing more than 10 percent to the overall market liquidity. Its 31.8 million shares worth SR 3.1 billion were liquidated last week.
Weekly market breadth was strong, as advances outnumbered the decliners by a margin of 96 to 55 and the prices of 6 companies remained unchanged.
Taiba Holding Company and ACE Arabia Cooperative Insurance showed the best weekly performance among all Saudi stocks, surging 26.97 percent and 23.53 percent respectively.
The market turnover went slightly up by 2.2 percent and traded 971 million shares as compared to previous week's 950 million shares. Furthermore, upside-downside volume ratio of 3.2:1 remained largely positive.
Most of the major benchmark indices at GCC stock markets ended the week in red.
The benchmark GulfBase GCC General Index closed the week higher at 4,115.37 points level, adding 13.73 points further or 0.33 percent for the entire week.
Market cap surges to SR1.47 trillion
