By Mouaz bin Saad

Riyadh-Mubasher: Saudi equities rose on Thursday after swinging during the day, hurt by worries spurred by Saudi airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The benchmark index TASI shut 0.40% or 35.37 points higher to reach 8,903 points.

More than 402 million shares were exchanged in more than 184,700 transactions at turnover exceeding SAR 9.9 billion.

Twelve sectors headed north, topped by hotels and tourism (+2.97%), followed by transportation (+2.58%) and industrial investment (+2.28%).

The three other sectors were lower, however, namely multi-investment (-1%), retail (-0.29%) and insurance (-0.16%).

Seventy stocks were up, led by National Gypsum (+9.24%), Saudi Re (+6.94%) and Pipe (+4.54%). Meanwhile, 88 other stocks were down, with Wataniya Insurance (-6.35%), KEC (-5.07%) and Al-Jouf (-5.02%) falling the most.

Alinma Bank was on top with the number of transactions reaching 8,572, followed by Dar Al Arkan (8,505) and KEC (6,558).

Dar Al Arkan was on top in terms of traded volume with 89.9 million shares, while Alinma Bank came second with 34 million shares and Emaar E.C. was third with 20 million shares.

Translated by Sayed Abdel Rahman