Saudi- Media and Publishing sector suffers 3% loss

(MENAFN- Arab News) The Saudi stock market continued its negative movement, marking another decline of 0.76 percent yesterday. Saudi Arabia's benchmark stock index (TASI) ended lower to 8,129.87, shedding 62.52 points for the entire day. It went 9 points above and 67 points below the break-even line during the day. TASI's year-to-date gains reduced further to 19.54 percent. The Market cap indices all finished to the downside, with Micro cap slipping more than one percent. Sectoral indices witnessed a negative change, dropping an aggregate of 710 points. Media and Publishing showing excessive losses of nearly three percent became the major declining sector, closing at 2,637.80. Agriculture and Real Estate sectors followed it, falling 1.6 percent and 1.3 percent respectively. Most of heavyweights closed in the downward territory, with bellwether SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) dipping by 1.27 percent and Al-Rajhi Bank 1.25 percent. The market breadth confirmed a bearish momentum, as out of 157 stocks traded yesterday only 23 were able to close higher. Ash-Sharqiyah Development Company came out as key gainer among all Saudi stocks, reflecting an increment of SR 2.25 or 3.88 percent. On the other side of the spectrum, Wafa Insurance suffered the greatest amount of damages for the second consecutive session, turning down 9.94 percent further. Aljazira Takaful Taawuni Company suffered profit taking yesterday, reversing after a 20-day surge and dropping 7.2 percent. But the company with trades over 22.8 million shares worth SR 1.5 billion topped the volume and value charts, capturing 11 percent of the overall market volume. A good amount of volume roughly 209 million shares was liquidated at Tadawul, an increase of 27.7 percent from the previous level but still it was 2.4 percent lower than 50-day average of 214.4 million shares.