Despite closing higher for three days during the week, Saudi Arabia’s benchmark stock index delivered negative end results last week. The index sustained its downward trend for the second consecutive week, closing at 7,504.38 points, down roughly 22 points or 0.29 percent from its previous weekend close at 7,526.26 points. It performed within a trading range of 128.2 points last week.
TASI’s year-to-date gains remained over seven hundred points or 10.34 percent.
The market capitalization of Saudi stock exchange decreased slightly (-0.54 percent), reaching at the previous week’s level of SR 1.5 trillion. Among market cap indices only Small cap was able to move a little higher.
Sectoral performance was mixed during the week, as the losses made by the Insurance (-3.34 percent) and Petrochemical Industries (-1.46 percent) being offset by rise in Hotel & Tourism (+1.15 percent) and Building & Construction (+1.12 percent).
Six out of top 10 heavy weights went down for the week, with Kingdom Holding dipping by 1.84 percent, bellwether SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) 1.61 percent and SABB 1.59 percent. On the positive side, Riyad Bank came out as key gainer among heavyweight equities, advancing more than one percent and closing the week at SR 24.95.
Weekly market breadth was unfavorable, with 69 stocks witnessing advances and 79 others marking a decline. Gulf Union Coop. Insurance and Al Jouf Agriculture showed the best weekly performance among all Saudi stocks, surging 14.84 percent and 11.14 percent respectively.
On the other hand, Saudi Indian Company for Co-operative Insurance switched its position from the top gainer of previous week to the biggest loser of the week, down SR 68.5 or 40.65 percent.
Market activity remained low last week; specifically 1.2 billion shares worth SR 27.6 billion were poured into the market. This turnover reflects a weekly decrease of 26.6 percent on volume basis and 21 percent in terms of value.
But upside-downside volume ratio of 1.9:1 remained positive.
Dar Al-Arkan Real Estate continued to dominate the trading activity, liquidating roughly 150 million shares and capturing 12.9 percent of the overall market volume.
Most of the major benchmark indices at GCC stock markets ended the week in red.
The benchmark GulfBase GCC General Index also closed the week lower at 4,384.08 points level, dropping more than 39 points or 0.89 percent for the entire week.
Dar Al-Arkan dominates trading
