Saudi- Tadawul falls after five weekly gains 

(MENAFN - Arab News) After spending five consecutive weeks with impressive gains, the Saudi stock market turned red last week.

The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI), which continued stepping downward throughout the week, ended in the red territory at 7,049.51 points, down 89.5 points or 1.25 percent from its previous weekend close at 7,139.01 points. The index traded within a range of 162.4 points for the week.

On year-to-date basis, the TASI's yield reached to 9.84 percent.
Large cap performed worst among the market cap indices, declining more than 1.8 percent in a week.

The market capitalization of Saudi stock exchange decreased slightly (-1.6 percent), reaching at the previous week's level of SR1.4 trillion. Furthermore, upside-downside volume ratio of 0.7:1 remained slightly weak.

Sectoral performance was negative, as 12 out of the 15 sectors closed in downward territory, paring an aggregate of 852.4 points for the entire week.

Media and Publishing and Petrochemical Industries sectors were significant losers, trimming more than two and half percent for the week. Transport sector followed them, going down by 2.4 percent. However, Insurance sector outperformed, reflecting a weekly growth of 3.02 percent.

Decliners outnumbered the advancers by a margin of 90 to 56 and the prices of 9 stocks remained unchanged last week.
Top ten heavy weights showed a negative performance for the week, with market leader SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) dipping by 3.26 percent, Kingdom Holding 2.61 percent and SABB 2.14 percent, and the Al-Rajhi Bank ending without any change.

Insurance companies continued to win the weekly race among all Saudi stocks. Allianz Saudi Fransi and Gulf General Cooperative Insurance were top gainers of the week, both marching higher by 28.4 percent.

On the other hand, Arabian Shield Insurance was the worst performer, topping the decliner weekly chart with 9.25 percent negative change.

Most of the major benchmark indices at GCC stock markets ended the week in green.

The benchmark GulfBase GCC General Index closed the week at 3,924.28 points level, dropping 28.9 points or 0.73 percent for the entire week.