Bearish trend prevails at Tadawul

A bearish trend continued to prevail at Saudi Stock Market last week. The Tadawul index extended its stay in the red area for the fifth straight week, reflecting 4.5 percent downfall.

The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) set out with a largest dip of 294.09 points or 4.22 percent at the end of its first trading day of the week, which could not be retrieved later and the index reflecting downward march for most of the weekly session ended in the red territory at 6661.26 points, down 314 points or 4.5 percent, from its previous weekend close at 6975.27 points.

All market cap indices ended the week in the negative zone, with Micro cap down over ten percent.

Overall weekly performance of sectoral indices remained negative as all closed in red, trimming an aggregate of 3,610.43 points last week.

Real Estate Development tumbled more than 400 points or 11.07 percent; Multi-Investment followed it down 10.3 percent for the week.

Retail sector suffered least losses comparatively, down 1.54 percent to close the week at 6969.75 points.

Tadawul volume, however, improved slightly by 0.8 percent as 1.58 billion shares changed hands last week, an improvement from 1.56 billion shares that were traded previous week. Furthermore, total market capitalization of Saudi stock exchange reached at SR1.31 trillion as compared to previous week's SR1.37 trillion, a decrease of 4.24 percent.

Tadawul’s weekly trading activity was dominated by Mobile Telecommunications Company (Zain), which liquidated more than 281.8 million shares worth SR 2.5 billion to close the week at SR8.7.

Market breadth was largely negative as only 7 Saudi companies were able to manage a gain for the week, with Astra Industrial Group surged 3.7 percent. Herfy Food ranked second, rising by 2.9 percent to close the week at SR90.

During the week, Knowledge Economic City came out as the biggest loser amongst all Saudi stocks, down 24.2 percent. Other worst performing stocks were Gassim Agricultural and Weqaya Takaful Insurance, both sank 21.7 percent last week.

All benchmark indices at GCC stock markets ended the week in red, except Muscat Securities Market which remained green for the third consecutive week, achieving 0.53 percent weekly growth.