The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) ended Thursday’s session with a decline by 0.28% or 25.6 points to 9055.6 points, amid tight liquidity.
Meanwhile, leading stocks bucked the market downtrend and also partially the movement of their respective sectors.
SABIC, the market’s largest stock in terms of capitalization and the second heaviest weight rose 0.66%.
Al Rajhi Bank, the heaviest weight on the index, also gained 0.23%. Mobily, which was a heavy weight before the recent slides, also advanced 2.61%.
Despite the bullish performance of SABIC and Al Rajhi, their respective sectors the petrochemical industries and banks declined by 0.47% and 0.55%.
The telecommunications sector was the top gainer (+0.91%).
Nasser Al Rashidi, financial analyst, said these leading stocks no longer have the same strong impact on their respective sectors or on the benchmark index, which is ascribed to their recent declines.
He further added that these stocks reached attractive price levels.
For his part, Mohamed Al Suwaid, co-founder, SPT Investors, said that the rise of these stocks was triggered by speculations especially as they reached low prices.
Thursday’s turnover declined by 13.8% to SAR 7.13 billion from SAR 8.28 billion yesterday. It is 4.67% and 2.6% lower than the average weekly and monthly average value reaching SAR 7.48 billion and SAR 7.3 billion.
Traded volume also fell 13% to 219 million shares from 252 million shares. It is 1.5% lower than the average weekly volume of 222.5 million shares, but 1.7% higher than the average monthly volume of 215.6 million shares.