Tadawul declines to six-month low

The Saudi stock market continued its downward spiral and fell for an eighth session yesterday. Uncertainty prevailed throughout the day and Tadawul index logged a largest intra-day decrease in six months. After a steep decline of 133.97 points during mid of the session, the Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) subsequently traveled sideways to end in the red territory at 6,666.46 points. The index pared 98.82 points or 1.46 percent for the entire day. TASI's year-to-date gains shrank to 3.88 percent merely. Micro cap performed worst among market cap indices, going down more than two percent. All sector indices closed in red, trimming an aggregate of 1,207.19 points. Hotel, Industrial Investment, Real Estate and Building & Construction sectors were major decliners, shedding more than two percent for the day. Banking sector also lost nearly 218 points to close at 14,745.17. The market breadth was largely negative with 137 stocks witnessing declines against 11 stocks registering advances and the prices of 7 companies remained unchanged. Insurance companies were the significant winners among all Saudi stocks, with Arabian Shield Insurance and Amana Cooperative Insurance, rising by 10 percent and 9.92 percent respectively. Anaam International Holding, on the contrary, delivered a largely negative performance, slipping 6.21 percent to close the day at SR 43.80. Top ten heavy weights closed lower from previous day's levels, with Samba Financial Group dipping by 2.44 percent, SABB 2.29 percent and Saudi Telecom 1.71 percent. Only Kingdom Holding turned green among large caps, advancing 0.87 percent to close the day at SR 17.35. From : Arab News