By Maged Al-Shabib
Riyadh-Mubasher: Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) extended its losing run for the fourth straight week, pressured by oil prices.
The index dived 6.22% to close below the 6,000 level for the first time in four years.
Oil prices lost more than $10 in two weeks to decline below $30, the first time in 11 years. In addition, the plunge of Asian markets weighed on the other stock markets.
Companies started to report their Q4-15 financial results and most of them were below forecasts.
Liquidity rose nearly 13% to SAR 27.21 billion, of which SAR 6.88 billion were dominated by the banking sector. It was followed by the petrochemical sector which accounted for 18.5% (SAR 5.02 billion). The real estate sector ranked third with SAR 3.04 billion, fuelled by the newly-listed Alandalus which captured SAR 1.2 billion of the total liquidity recorded by its sector.
All sectors declined, led by the media and hotels which fell 24% and 15.48%, respectively.
The banking sector dropped 4.5% to its lowest level since February 2011.
Losers outnumbered gainers 166 to 10. Alandalus was the top gainer, soaring 9.8%. Meanwhile, Nadec was the biggest faller, diving 34.4%.
Translated by Abdul Maguid Aboshahla
