By Mohamed Abu Meleeh:

Riyadh-Mubasher: The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) benchmark index rose in January by 6.54% or 545.24 points to end the month at 8878.5 points, compared with 8333.3 points at the end of December.

Thus, the market achieved its biggest monthly rise since August, 2014. It fell during the last four months by rates ranging between 14.05% in November and 2.32% in September.

The Saudi bourse  was powered by sectors that were mostly in green, except for telecommunication that dropped 5.93%. The gaining sectors were led by hotel & tourism (+16.43%), then industrial investment (+16.32%) and insurance (+14.94%). Banks & financial services and petrochemical industries were also higher by 7.51% and 4.89% respectively.

Market capitalization gained around SAR 106 billion in January to reach SAR 1.92 trillion ($511.7 billion), compared with SAR 1.81 trillion ($483.4 billion) at December-end.

The month’s traded volume amounted to 6.74 billion shares, down 12.69% from 7.72 billion shares in December. Turnover also fell by 19.98% to SAR 162.5 billion from SAR 203 billion. The number of transactions declined by 19.8% to 3.1 million from 3.8 million.

163 companies were traded in January, out of which 156 moved higher spearheaded by Al-Alamiya Cooperative Insurance (+92.24%), Alujain (+40.8%), Tauwniya (+37%), Alinma Tokio Marine (+33.9%) and SARCO (+4.7%).

Meanwhile, seven stocks only moved lower led by Mobily (-15.72%), followed by Alhokair (-8.19%), SABB (-5.55%), Bupa Arabia (-2.39%), Southern Cement (-2.01%), Bank AlJazira (-0.65%) and Tihama (-0.25%).

Translated by Sayed Abdulrahman

Photo Credit: Arabianeye-Reuters