(MENAFN - Arab News) Saudi stocks spent the entire week with impressive gains. The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) broke the psychological barrier of 7,000 points mark, up 219.3 points and closed at 7,031.26 points, a weekly growth of 3.22 percent. The index touched an intra-week high of 7,055.38 and low of 6,811.88 levels. However, the stock market reflected positive sentiment throughout the week.
Transport and Insurance became the best performing sectors showing a weekly growth of 9.59 percent and 5.24 percent respectively. Petrochemical Industries sector increased by 4.79 percent and closed at 6,574.40 points, while Banks & Financial Services sector added considerable 410 points (2.64 percent) for the week. Indices of all Saudi sectors performed well except Hotel & Tourism which could not manage a gain and lost 45 points to close at 6995.17 levels.
Share trading activity remained high during the week. Most of the trading was concentrated in the Petrochemical and Insurance sectors, both on volume basis contributed a relative market share of 20.1 percent and 15.9 percent respectively.
During the week about 2.15 billion shares worth SR51.8 billion were transacted at Tadawul. This turnover reflects a 22.6 percent increase in terms of value and 13.3 percent in terms of volume as compared to the previous week, while, the number of executed transactions reached 1.01 million trades, an increase of 17.4 percent.
Total market capitalization of Saudi stock exchange reached at SR1.38 trillion as compared to previous week's SR1.34 trillion, an increase of three percent. Micro Cap performed well relatively as it posted a weekly growth of 3.7 percent to close at 10766.24 points. On YTD basis it has achieved an increase of 17 percent.
The bellwether SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) and Alinma Bank remained as most active stocks through the week. SABIC with SR3.97 billion topped the value chart and Alinma Bank with 130.6 million shares occupied the title of volume leader. Both stocks ended the week in green to close at SR100.50 and SR10.65 respectively.
Saudi Indian Insurance performed well and remained as top gainer of the week with 33.05 percent growth. SAPTCO ranked second with 27.1 percent weekly growth to close at 13.60. On the other hand, Qassim Agricultural Co. shed by 10.9 percent during the week.
SABIC recorded substantial yearly gains. On Wednesday, SABIC has declared that its bottom line for the fiscal year 2011 is up by 36 percent (SR29.24 billion) as compared to a net Income of SR21.53 billion in 2010.
All GCC Stock markets ended the week in green zone, with Dubai Financial Market (DFM) leading the GCC markets. They added 7.67 percent and rising at nine-month highest level of 1,632.27 point with year to date growth of 20.61 percent. The Tadawul index gained 3.22 percent during the week followed by Abu Dhabi Exchange (ADX) which surged 2.62 percent to 2,539.20 points.
The benchmark GulfBase GCC General Index closed at 3,972.63 points, reflecting a gain of 2.59 percent during the week.
