By Majed Al-Shabib
Riyadh – Mubasher: The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) showed Wednesday a volatile performance, inching down 10 points to 6,167 points.
The benchmark added 40 points crossing the level of 6,200 points, yet it was then dragged lower by profit taking.
Trading value declined 5% to SAR 5.7 billion, after 329 million shares were traded over 139,000 transactions.
The stock market may see profit taking following stock gains in the previous sessions, said Ahmed Al Bader, financial analyst, adding that corrections provide opportunities for traders to put their money back to work.
Meanwhile, it is vital that the market maintains its balance above 6,000 points, according to the analyst.
Sectors finished the session on a mixed note as nine moved down and six went up.
The laggards were headed by hotel & tourism (-2.19%), followed by media & publishing (-1.27), and petrochemical industries (-0.7%). Banks & financial services came last, as it fell by 0.62%, weakened by Al Rajhi Bank that registered the largest decline in a month.
Meanwhile, the gainers were led by energy & utilities and agriculture & food industries that rose by 2.7% and 1.6% respectively.
Tracking the stock performance, the best advancing stocks were Al Khodari Sons (+9.9%), Umm Al Qura Cement (+8.4%) and finally NADEC (+6.5%).
On the negative note, Jarir Marketing, Al Tayyar Travel Group and Al Rajhi Bank decreased by 3.15%, 2.6%, and 6.5% correspondingly.
Translated by Ahmed El-Sayed Ali
