By Mohamed Abu Meleeh
Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) lost as much as 1.6% or 112.9 points to close below the 7,000 level at 6,934 points. The market was pressured lower by leading sectors.
Today’s decline also came amid forecasts of lower profits for some leading companies like SABIC for the fourth quarter, coupled with continued decline in crude prices.
KSB Capital Group earlier today expected a fall in profits of four petrochemical companies in the fourth quarter of 2015, mainly SABIC with a drop of 26%. Saudi Fransi Capital also expected the petrochemical industries sector to post a 14% decline in Q4 combined profits.
Meanwhile, OPEC expected a decline in global demand for oil to reach 30.70 million bpd by 2020, from 30.90 million bpd next year.
Sectors were mostly in red, except for real estate development that rose by 0.04%.
The multi-investment sector was the biggest loser, with a fall of 3.11%. Banks came second (-2.42%), followed by insurance (-2.4%), then petrochemical industries (-2.11%). Retail tailed the list with a decline of 0.42%.
Wednesday’s traded volume rose by 6% to 274 million shares from 258.8 million shares, while traded value increased by 1.8% to SAR 5.6 billion from SAR 5.5 billion.
JAZADCO was the top performing stock with a jump of 7.11%, followed by Nadec (+3.88%) and Makkah Construction (+2.92%). Meanwhile, Kingdom Holding was the biggest drag (-6.27%), followed by Saudi Fisheries (-5.93%) and Alinma Tokio Marine (-5.18%).
Translated by Sayed Abdel Rahman
