By: Waleed Abd El-Salam
Riyadh - Mubasher: The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) ended Wednesday’s trading session in the red due to the negative performance of the banks and telecommunications sectors, while the positive performance of the petrochemicals sector helped offset the market's losses.
The Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) lost 0.23% or 16.51 points and closed at the level of 7,240.66 points, maintaining its level above 7,200 points.
Financial analyst Osama Al-Sudame told Mubasher that the Saudi market declined on Wednesday on the back of profit-taking activity after the recent rise, with investors anticipating the announcement of companies' annual financial results.
Tadawul saw a positive performance on light weight stocks in the hotels and tourism sector as well as retail, alongside petrochem stocks after the recent rise in oil prices, he added.
Traded values declined to SAR 5.87 billion ($1.56 billion) from SAR 5.97 billion ($1.59 billion) on Tuesday, while traded volumes decreased to 321.3 million shares compared to 350.6 million shares yesterday.
Al-Sudame expects the market fluctuations to continue upwards making use of the marginal gains seen by the close of the main index by the end of the year.
Ther energy sector lost 2.26% as Saudi Electricity went down by 2.6% to SAR 22.35, while media and publishing decreased by 1% as Marketing and research shed 0.69%.
The banks sector fell by 0.67%, as Al-Rajhi and Al-Ahli slid 0.21% and 0.16% closing at SAR 63 and SAR 43 respectively.
Similarly, the telecom sector declined by 0.26% as Zain and Mobily lost 0.59% and 0.4% to SAR 8.40 and SAR 24.4 respectively, while STC gained 0.3% and closed at SAR 72.75.
On the other hand, the petrochem sector levelled up 0.06% as SAFCO added 1.68% to SAR 75.75, while SABIC lost 0.66% to SAR 92.5.
Petrochem was the session’s biggest gainer and surged 9.85%, while Saudi Electricity led today’s decliners and dropped 2.61%.
Alinma registered the highest turnover at SAR 473.7 million, while Dar Al Arkan was the most active in traded volumes with 68.2 million shares.
Translated by: Moslem Ali
