Media stocks stay in the limelight

The Saudi stock market bucked the prevailing 4-day negative trend and turned green on Sunday.

The benchmark Tadawul AllShare Index (TASI) jumped 1.37 percent just after the opening bell and finally achieved 64 points or 0.64 percent, closing the session at 10,099.27.

Sectoral performance was positive, with 12 sectors accumulating an aggregate of 900 points. Media and Publishing sector dominated the performance at Tadawul, advancing 1.87 percent to close at 2,549.04.

Insurance was another key gaining sector, growing by 1.68 percent. On the other hand, Multi-Investment with 0.2 percent negative change became the major declining sector.

The total number of rising stocks exceeded to the total number of falling stocks by a huge margin of 125 to 26.

Basic Chemical Industries and Saudi Printing Company showed a tremendous perfor- mance among all Saudi stocks, marching higher by 7.15 percent and 6.68 percent respectively.

Major heavy weights also rose from previous day’s level, with Saudi British Bank outdid rest of its peers, advancing 2.2 percent to SR58.50. The market leader SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) closed up 0.56 percent to SR111.52.

Market activity was a little low for the day; roughly 170 million shares worth SR5.8 billion were liquidated at Tadawul. This turnover reflects a daily decrease of 16.8 percent on volume basis and 10.4 percent in terms of liquidity.

The 50-day average for trading volume is closer to 280 million shares.

Again Alinma Bank topped the volume chart, liquidating 20.5 million shares and capturing twelve percent of the overall market volume.

While, Al-Rajhi Bank pumping a liquidity of SR563 million remained the most liquid stock for the day, closing at SR66.75.