By Mohamed Abu Meleeh
Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) rose by 1.41% or 95 points on Wednesday to close at 6,866 points. Thus, the market continued its rise to the second day after it bounced back from a three-day losing run during which it bottomed out at a three-year low.
The banks sector was the biggest gainer, with a rise of 3.46%, after its biggest shares Al Rajhi and NCB jumped by 5.27% and 2.36% respectively. Bank Al-Jazira was the only stock that moved lower, down by 1.75%, after the lender announced backtracking on a capital increase plan.
Meanwhile, investors are anticipating the decision of the U.S. Federal Reserve on interest rates, which will be announced today, amid expectations that the world’s biggest economy will raise interest rate for the first time in ten years.
The rise in interest rate will be positive for Saudi banks, especially in the presence of low-cost deposits worth billions of dollars.
Nine sectors moved higher topped by media and publishing (+8.29%), then banks, industrial investment (+2.44%). Meanwhile, six sectors moved lower led by hotel and tourism (-1.33%), then multi-investment (-1.18%) and agriculture (-0.75%).
Today’s traded volume rose by 7% to 279 million shares from 260.8 million shares, while traded value increased by 16.3% to SAR 5.89 billion from SAR 5.1 billion.
SRMG was the best performing stock (+9.57%), followed by Herfy (+9.42%), Saudi Printing (+9.16%), SHB (+8%), BSF (+7.2%) and Al Rajhi Bank (+5.27%). Meanwhile, Al Jouf Agriculture was the biggest loser (-4.15%), followed by Al-Khaleej Training (-3.73%) and Dallah Healthcare and Kingdom Holding with a decline of 3.42% each.
Translated by Sayed Abdel Rahman
