The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) gained 0.4 percent last week, closing at 6,465.69 points.
The gains were seen in nine sectors ranging from 0.37 percent by the Petrochemical Industries to 2.97 percent by the Cement sector and the losing sectors for the week ranged from -0.02 percent by the Agriculture and Food Industries to -2.73 percent by the Hotel and Tourism sector. The large, medium and small-cap closed with gains at 4731.49 points, up 0.97 percent, 3938.44 points, up 0.76 percent, and 3264.69 points, up 0.74 percent, the Jeddah-based Financial Transaction House (FTH) said in its weekly market commentary.
The Saudi stock market turnover dipped to SR13.09 billion last week as compared to SR15.16 billion in the previous week.
The Alsorayai Trading and Industrial Group Company made its listing debut on Monday and made a huge gain of 22.59 percent. Alsorayai was top gainer for the week at 18.89 percent. Its shares closed at SR32.10.
The other gainers last week were Saudi Industrial Services Co. (SISCO), up 8.63 percent, Banque Saudi Fransi (8.11 percent), Bank Albilad (5.71 percent) and Saudi Cement (5.18 percent).
Shares in Saudi Arabian Cooperative Insurance Company fell 7.31 percent to SR60.25 last week.
"The 6,570-point hurdle remains a strong resistance point, the crashing of which needs new incentives in terms of higher oil prices, stronger dollar, better results for the first quarter or good news from the global markets," said Saudi analyst Tareq Madi.
Meanwhile, the Tadawul announced on Wednesday that Muscat Securities House has become a duly licensed, approved and authorized member firm of Tadawul, with the right to conduct brokerage services and deal as principal and agent in the Saudi stock exchange.
Arab stock markets reflected sluggish performance last week due to what analysts described as fluctuating oil prices and weak corporate results for 2009.
The main losers were the stock exchanges of Dubai and Abu Dhabi which tumbled amid uncertainty over the repayment of the Dubai World conglomerate's debt, they said.
"I believe fluctuating oil prices and weak results for 2009 are mainly to blame for the poor performance of regional markets last week," Wajdi Makhamreh, CEO of the Amman-based Noor Investments brokerage, said.
"We think that Arab stocks will move sideways in the coming weeks due to the absence of fresh incentives and additional indications about world recovery," he said.
The Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) was last week the scene for violent fluctuations that Makhamreh attributed to selling by foreign funds.
"Speculation trading led by leading investors is apparently the dominant state of affairs," he said.
The ASE all-Share index gained 0.58 percent last week, closing at 2,438 points, according to the market's weekly report.
Kuwaiti stocks came under selling pressures that focused on services and banking sectors after the Gulf Bank reported losses for 2009.
The KSE all-share index edged lower, closing week at 7,379 points compared with 7,396 points the earlier week.
The United Arab Emirates shares extended losses last week mainly due to the foggy situation surrounding the repayment of the Dubai world debt, analysts said.
The Dubai World is supposed to present a repayment offer to creditors within one month, when it may be accepted or rejected, they added.
The all-share index of the Dubai exchange plunged 2.7 percent last week, closing at 1,582 points, while the Abu Dhabi benchmark fell 2.4 percent, closing at 2,701 points.
Egypt's AGX30 index, measuring the performance of the market's 30 most active stocks, lost 2.1 percent to close week at 6,719 points.
The GulfBase GCC Index declined 0.37 percent last week to 3,843.70. The value of GCC traded shares also fell 28.02 percent to $5.30 billion and volume dropped by 41.94 percent to 3.31 billion of shares.
