* Ahmed Al-Rasheed from Riyadh
Saudi shares lost about 21 points, 0.27%, and closing at 8000 points, 7996 points.
This came amid the decline of most sectors and stocks, with continued low liquidity, which reached a six-month low of 2.4 billion riyals.
The market is less active and more stable, but that does not seem to be long. The market's inability to return above 8,000 points and above the 21-day average of 8037 points would favor in traders' selling profit or stopping the loss in light of the market's weak performance.
A the market approaches the end of the second quarter, traders will be encouraged to keep liquidity down and not materially move ahead of the financial results.
Overall market performance
The general index opened at 8018 points, trading between high and low.
The highest point was at 8022 points, 0.06%, while the lowest point was at 7982 points, lost 0.45%
At the end of the session, the general index closed at 7996 points, losing 21 points, 0.27 per cent.
Liquidity declined 7 percent by about 183 billion riyals to reach 2.4 billion riyals, and the average value per transaction was 30 thousand riyals.
While traded shares fell 10 per cent by about 11 million traded shares to reach 106 million shares traded, and the turnover rate was 0.2 per cent.
Transactions rose 3 per cent by about 2.2 thousand to reach 79,000 transactions.
Sector performance
Seven sectors rose against the rest.
The rise was led by "luxury goods segment" that rose by 1.45%, followed by "transport" of 1.13% and "communications" of 0.9%.
While the decline was led "Media" that rose by 4.3 percent, followed by "Property Management and Development" of 1.9 percent, and "food segmentation" of 1.3 percent.
The highest turnovers were "Basic Materials" of 31% with a value of SR 765 million, followed by "Banks" of 22% with a value of SR 545 million and "Real Estate Management and Development" of 8% with a value of 201 millions.
Stock performance
The rise was led by "Takween" that rose 7.7 per cent to close to SAR10.86, followed by "Red Sea" of 4.3 per cent to close at SAR18.82 and "JAZADCO" of 4.2 per cent to close at SAR15.18.
On the other hand, the decline was led "Anaam Holding" of 5.2 percent to close at SAR 12.86, followed by "Al-Sorayai Group" of 5 percent to close at SAR 21.26 and "Amana Insurance" of 4.8 percent to close at SAR 14.31.
"SABIC" had the highest turnover of SAR363 million (15 per cent), "Alinma" (13 per cent) with a value of SR320 million and Al-Rajhi (5 per cent) with a value of SR 116 million.
* Economic Reports Unit
