By: Thabet Shehata

Riyadh – Mubasher: The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) saw negative performance during the third quarter, as the main index retreated 13.5% or 876.54 points to reach 5,623.34 points as compared to 6,499.88 points in the second quarter.

Tadawul’s market cap shrank by SAR 179 billion to SAR 1.325 trillion ($353.43 billion) in Q3 as compared to SAR 1.5 trillion ($401.16 billion) in Q2.

In September, the main index lost 7.5% to post the lowest level since January.

The media and publishing sector led the decliners by 40%, while the lowest sectors in red was the petrochemicals with a fall of 1.34%.

During the third quarter of 2016, trading value dropped 47% to reach SAR 169.17 billion ($45.11 billion) as compared to SAR 319.86 billion ($85.3 billion) in the previous quarter.

Similarly, trading volume decreased 45.3% to reach 9.88 billion shares this quarter as compared to 18.06 billion in the second quarter.

In the nine-month period, Tadawul’s main index lost 18.64% or 1,288.4 points as compared to the same period in 2015 when it reached 6,911.76 points.