TADAWUL: Real estate sector stays in limelight

The Saudi stock market bucked the two-week downward trend and rose last week on the back of strong performance by the Real Estate and Multi-Investment sectors.
Saudi Arabia's benchmark Tadawul All-Share Index dug in at 7,893.67 and finished the week up over 3.4 percent or 259.4 points, from its previous weekend close at 7,634.3 points. It performed within a weekly trading range of 334 points. TASI’s year-to-date yield remained over sixteen percent.
Total market capitalization of Saudi stock exchange surged to SR1.57 trillion, an increase of 3.3 percent from the previous week's level. Small Cap showed the best performance among market cap indices, achieving a weekly growth of 5.87 percent.
Sectoral performance was tremendous, as all sectors finished to the upside, accumulating an aggregate of 4,145 points in a week.
Real Estate Development outdid rest of the sectors, reflecting an increment of 321.7 points or 7.34 percent for the entire week to close at 4,702.96. Multi-Investment and Tourism sectors followed it, surging more than seven percent.
Big players also witnessed a positive weekly change, with Kingdom holding soaring up nearly ten percent, Samba Financial Group four percent, Riyad Bank 3.57 percent and bellwether SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) 2.1 percent.
Weekly market breadth confirmed a bullish momentum, as out of 157 stocks traded last week only 6 stocks could not manage for gains.
Saudi Hotels & Resort Areas Co. — SHARCO and Mediterranean & Gulf Insurance made the biggest weekly jumps among all Saudi equities, marching higher by 24.2 percent and 20.0 percent respectively.
Investors continued to flow an optimal level of turnover; specifically, 1.3 billion shares worth SR29.5 billion changed hands on the Saudi stock market last week. This volume reflects an increase of 13 percent from previous week’s level.
Dar Alarkan Real Estate appeared to be the most active stock for the week.
Its volume set sold roughly 238 million shares, which are about 18.5 percent of the overall market. Dar Alarkan with a liquidity of SR 2.3 billion also topped the value chart, closing exactly at the par value.
Furthermore, Emaar the Economic City remained significant advancer among most active stocks, moving up 14.4 percent in a week.
All major benchmark indices at GCC stock markets ended the week in green.
The benchmark GulfBase GCC General Index closed the week higher at 4,548.13 points level, adding 170 points or 3.89 percent for the entire week.