Saudi stocks broke a five-straight winning streak to close at 7,751 points, down 24 points, 0.3 percent, because of the pressure from banks led by Al-Rajhi. The market continues trading below 8000 points after touching it in yesterday's session.
The dominance of sellers has been apparent since then, and the market seems to have not found sufficient incentives to stabilize above that barrier, especially as the results of the first quarter have not yet emerged. However, moving oil prices above $ 70 could positively affect risk appetite, pushing the market to try to break through 8000 pips. When the oil price improvement factor is omitted, the market is technically overbought, especially since it has been up about 10 percent since the beginning of the year, making it the best year-to-date performance since 2013, and a 17b bis profit margin. It makes returns less attractive than before, unless corporate results improve in the first quarter.
These factors are behind the selling pressures the market is now facing. The index has support at 7820 points while resistance was at 8020 points.
Overall market performance
The general index opened at 7975 points, trading between high and low. The highest point was at 7990 points with 0.2% gain, while the lowest point was at 7942 points, lost 0.4%. At the end of the session, the general index closed at 7951 points, losing 24 points, 0.3 percent. Liquidity declined 950 million riyals by 19 percent to reach 3.9 billion riyals, at a rate of 37,000 riyals per transaction.
While traded shares fell 25% by about 54 million traded shares to reach 161 million shares traded, a turnover rate of 0.3%. The deals fell 16 percent by 21,000 to reach 106,000 deals.
Sector performance
Eight sectors rose against the rest. The rise was led by "Real Estate Management and Development" of 1.3 percent, followed by "Insurance" of 0.58 percent, and "Food Retailing" of 0.58 percent. While the decline was led by "food production" of 0.97 percent, followed by "commercial and professional services" of 0.73 percent, and "transport" of 0.69 percent.
The main turnovers were "Basic Materials" of 39% by about SR 1.6 billion, followed by "Real Estate Management and Development" of 18% by about SAR 723 million and "Banks" of 17% by about SR 684 million.
Stock performance
The rise was led by "Sharqiyah Development Company" rose 5.6 percent to close at SAR 47.28, followed by "Dar Al-Arkan" of 5.5 percent to close at SAR 12.83, and "Astra Industrial" of 3 percent to close at SAR 17.97. On the other hand, the decline was led by "SARCO" of 2.5% to close at 45.78 riyals, followed by "Petrochem" of 2.45% to close at 26.33 riyals, and then "Budget Saudi Arabia" of 2.32% to close at 36.58 riyals.
The highest turnovers were "SABIC" with a value of SAR 933 million at 23 percent, followed by "Dar Al-Arkan" at 16 percent with a value of SR 621 million, and "Al-Rajhi" at 9 percent with a value of SAR 349 million.
* Economic Reports Unit
