Tadawul declines below 7.000 points

After a period of five weeks, Saudi Arabia’s benchmark stock index passed through a lean session, shedding more than 54 points yesterday. The index trimming back 7,000-mark earlier yesterday and then moving sideways for rest of the session, finally ended lower 0.77 percent to 6,988.19 points. The TASI reduced its year-to-date gains to 187 points or 2.75 percent. The market cap indices all finished to the downside. All sector indices closed in red, dropping an aggregate of 671 points. Multi-Investment, Real Estate and Retail sectors were major decliners, falling 1.7 percent, 1.4 percent and 1.2 percent respectively. Banking sector also lost nearly 107 points to close at 15,296.24. Most of heavyweights slipped from previous day’s level, with Kingdom Holding dipping by 1.96 percent, SABB 1.51 and the bellwether SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) 1.35 percent. Only Riyad Bank showed a positive change, advancing 0.21 percent for the session. Most active stocks also showed a negative change, with Saudi Mobile Telecommunications Co. (ZAIN) going down by 2.83 percent, Emaar the Economic City 2.58 percent and Alinma bank 1.85 percent. The market breadth confirmed a bearish momentum, as out of 155 stocks traded yesterday only 22 were able to close higher. Alalamiya Cooperative Insurance and Basic Chemical Industries led the top gainers chart at Tadawul, surging by 6.4 percent and 3.4 percent respectively. Weqaya Takaful Insurance, on the other hand, suffered worst of all equities, showing a reduction of SR 2.1 or 4.68 percent to SR 42.8. From:arabnews