Riyadh – Mubasher: The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) concluded the week ended 23 February on a negative note, following pressure from the banks, telecoms, and basic materials sectors.
The Tadawul All Shares Index (TASI) retreated 1.19% or 85.1 points to end at 7,0.46.17 points, down from last week's closing at 7,131.27 points.
The Saudi market commenced the week in the green, with marginal gains but suffered declines on Monday and Tuesday. It ended Wednesday slightly up only to resume losses on Thursday.
Market capitalisation was down by SAR 20.88 billion ($5.57 billion) this week to end at SAR 1.65 trillion ($440 billion) compared to last week's closing at SAR 1.67 trillion ($445.6 billion).
Sector-wise, most of Tadawul's sectors were down, led by media with 4.3% after Research and Marketing and Tihama retreated 4.02% and 5.1%, to SAR 31.06 and SAR 24.91, respectively.
The banking sector suffered 1.18% in losses this week, pressured by Al Rajhi and National Commercial Bank (NCB), which lost 0.78% and 0.96% to SAR 64.97 and SAR 41.39, respectively.
The basic industries sector levelled down 0.81% after SABIC slipped 0.08% to SAR 97.37, while Saudi Cement declined 2.29% to SAR 61.80.
On the positive side, three sectors were in the green, led by real estate investment funds, which surged 15.4% after Riyadh REIT saw a similar increase to SAR 13.81, while Al Jazira REIT gained 3% to SAR 19.40.
Turnover increased 2% this week to SAR 18.38 billion ($4.9 billion) compared to last week's SAR 18.02 billion ($4.8 billion), registering an average per session of SAR 3.68 billion this week.
Meanwhile, traded volume grew 3.75% week-over-week to 1.04 billion shares traded from around 1 billion shares, averaging 208.1 million shares per session.
Al Ahlia Cooperative Insurance topped fallers, plunging 15.41% in a week to SAR 13.01, while Saudi Industrial Development Company (SIDC) surged 17.2% to SAR 12.66.
SABIC was value leader with SAR 1.2 billion during the week, while Dar Al Arkan was the most actively traded in terms of volume with 116.76 million shares exchanged. The stock ended down 0.3% to SAR 5.99.
