Insurance, banking stocks suffer fall

14/11/2014 08:21 AST

On Thursday, Saudi Arabia's benchmark Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) stepped down to 9,681.66 points, showing a further reduction of 84.35 points or 0.86 percent for the entire session.

While curving in the downward territory throughout the day it dipped to a maximum loss of 108 points.

Large Cap performed worst among the market cap indices, declining over one percent. Market leader SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) fell 1.11 percent to SR103.38.

Most of the major sector indices finished to the downside, paring an aggregate of 1,141 points. Insurance suffered worst of all sectors, depreciating by 1.83 percent to close the day at 1,616.01.

Banks & Financial Services was another declining sector, slipping 369 points or 1.69 percent. Alinma Bank falling over three percent became the major decliner in this sector.

But the bank with trades over 39.5 million shares worth SR 950.2 million topped the activity charts, capturing 20.7 percent of the overall market volume.

On the positive side, Multi-Investment sector continued its upward march, marking another handsome gain of 3.38 percent to 4,549.0.

The market breadth was largely negative, with 28 stocks witnessing advances and 117 others marking a decline. BUPA Arabia for Cooperative Insurance came out as the biggest loser of the day, showing a decline of SR 10.76 or 6.07 percent to SR 166.76.

But the company has achieved a 341 percent increment in one year.

While, the heavyweight Kingdom holding made the biggest jump amongst Saudi stocks, soaring up by 9.97 percent. New player National Commercial Bank also continued its positive movement, surging further by 9.59 percent to SR54.25.

Share trading began to taper off, as Tadawul volume set sold around 191 million shares, a decrease of 25.9 percent as compared to 50-day average. Liquidity also shrank to SR5.9 billion, 30.4 percent lower than 50-day average level.

GulfBase.com