Market cap increases slightly in KSA

After two consecutive weeks of trading in the red the Saudi stock market turned green last week, recovering a few points merely. Despite closing lower for two days during the week, the Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) dug in at 6,887.29 and finished the week up 8.57 points or 0.12 percent from its previous weekend close at 6,878.72 points. The index touched an intra-week high of 6,909.09 and low of 6,785.7 levels, reflecting a trading range of 123.4 points last week. On year-to-date basis, the index showed a collection of nearly 470 points or 7.32 percent. The market capitalization of Saudi stock exchange increased slightly (+0.56 percent), surpassing the previous week's level of SR 1.38 trillion. For the week, only Large cap indices went upward slightly. Sectoral performance was mixed, as the losses made by the Media and Publishing (-2.53 percent) and Insurance (-1.6 percent) being offset by rise in Retail (+2.46 percent) and Industrial Investment (+2.38 percent). Weekly market breadth remained slightly negative, whereby 68 symbols closed in green and 77 closed in red, while 9 remained unchanged. Furthermore, upside-downside volume ratio reached to 0.4:1. Takween Advanced Industries showed a tremendous performance among all Saudi stocks, topping the weekly gainer chart with 17.49 percent positive change, closing at SR 54.75. On the other side of the spectrum, Saudi Mobile Telecommunications Co. (Zain) suffered the greatest amount of damages, turning down 15.28 percent for the week. Seven out of top 10 heavyweights ended the week in green, with Kingdom Holding recovering a major portion of previous week's losses, rising by 5.36 percent to close the week at SR 14.75. On the contrary, SABB played worst among the rest of its heavyweight peers for the seventh straight week, going down by 1.94 percent further. Tadawul weekly turnover, however, improved by 22.4 percent on volume basis, 20.1 percent on value basis and 23.1 percent in terms of executed transactions. More than 932.4 million shares worth SR 25.1 billion changed hands on the Saudi stock market. Most of the major benchmark indices at GCC stock markets ended the week in green. The benchmark GulfBase GCC General Index closed the week higher at 3,938.22 points level, adding 8.26 points or 0.21 percent for the entire week. Arab news