By Mouaz bin Saad

Riyadh – Mubasher: The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) gained on Tuesday, as the benchmark index TASI rose 0.03% or 3.24 points to close at 9,811 points.

Tuesday’s traded volume amounted to more than 232 million shares, exchanged in over 169,600 transactions at turnover exceeding SAR 7 billion.

Ten sectors were in the green, topped by transportation (+2.98%), then insurance (+1.39%) and hotels and tourism (+1.39%). Meanwhile, five other sectors were in red, led by telecoms (-0.66%), then petrochemical industries (-0.65%) and real estate development (-0.47%). Banks and financial services was also down 0.01%.

Tracking stock performance, advancers outnumbered decliners by 85 to 57.

Hardware retailing company SACO was the best performer, soaring 9.82% to SAR 123. It was followed by transport firm SAPTCO which jumped 9.58% to SAR 68.50, then Arabia Insurance which was 5.32% higher at SAR 15.65.

On the negative front, property developer Emaar E.C. was the biggest drag, falling 2.96% to SAR 16.40. Wataniya came second with a 2.79% fall to SAR 95.50, followed by ACE which was down 2.23% to SAR 74.50.

Giant petrochemical producer SABIC was down 0.81%, extending its fall for the second successive day.

SACO came on top with turnover reaching SAR 700.507 million, followed by SABIC with SAR 484.651 million and Alinma Bank with SAR 414.653 million.

Property developer Dar Al Arkan was the most active with a traded volume reaching 31.075 million shares, followed by Alinma Bank with 17.082 million shares and Emaar with 10.862 million shares.

Translated by Sayed Abdel Rahman