JEDDAH, 15 August 2005 — The Saudi stock market continued its upward march yesterday as the Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) closed 149.11 points or 1.05 percent higher at 14,347.17.
Most active by volume was Saudi Livestock (10,844,833), followed by Qassim Agriculture (4,144,834), Al Baha (3,382,780), Saudi Electricity Co. (3,314,728), Taiba (2,575,734) and Gizan Agriculture (2,264,467).
Out of 76 stocks traded yesterday, 48 were higher and 27 stocks were trading lower.
Saad Al-Harithy, an investor in stocks, said the crossing of 14,000 points mark by the Saudi bourse was expected in the wake of the repatriation of Saudi funds invested abroad.
Khaled Aida Al-Matrafi, a stock market expert, said the index could reach 16,000 points by the end of this year, given the present trend of many companies to increase their capital and float their shares for public subscription.
Khaled Al-Harbi, another investor in the market, commended the Capital Market Authority’s role in creating investor confidence, thus boosting the market. He said industries, cement companies and banks would lead the market’s upward trend in the coming months.
Except Cement sector index, all other indices closed higher yesterday. The Industrial sector index was the most dominant with a gain of 732.56 points or 1.99 percent at 37,617.83 points followed by Agriculture index which was up by 63.65 points or 1.32 percent at 4,877.31 points. The Telecom sector index closed at 5,436.09 yesterday, higher by 58.56 points or 1.09 percent.
However, the Cement index closed 33.15 points lower at 8,929.99 points yesterday.
The Capital Market Authority (CMA) said that Almarai shares would be traded in the Saudi stock market as of Wednesday. The fluctuation range of the stock price will be open the first day of trade and the stock will be included in the market index once the price is stable. Almarai Company for dairy products put 4.5 million shares for public underwriting for SR512 per share.
Meanwhile, according to the Kuwait-based Global Investment House (Global) the GCC markets witnessed selling pressure in July as investors tried to book profits. Barring Kuwait, all the GCC stock indices reported monthly declines led by UAE which reported a whopping decline of 19.3 percent in July. Kuwait market reported gain of 4.08 percent on the back of strong earnings news which triggered a re-rating of the stocks.
Qatar stock market also fell to broad-based selling as the Global DSM Index reported a monthly decline of 4.75 percent. In terms of YTD gains, Qatar now heads the GCC region with the YTD gain of 72.43 percent followed by UAE.
The market capitalization of the GCC region declined in July on account of selling witnessed in the markets. The market capitalization of Saudi Arabia declined to $506.8 billion as compared to $517.4 billion in June. Market capitalization of UAE too fell to $147.8 billion in July compared to $191.5 billion recorded at the end of June. However, despite the decline witnessed by the Oman market, its market capitalization increased by around $3.5 billion primarily on account of the listing of Omantel on the exchange.
