Most major Gulf bourses were sluggish in holiday-thinned trade on Wednesday with Saudi Arabia leading the losses on financials, while Egypt retreated on a blue-chip sell-off.

Saudi Arabia's benchmark index declined 0.9%, driven down by a 1.8% fall in Al Rajhi Bank and a 3% slide in National Commercial Bank 1180.SE .

State-owned Aramco dropped a further 0.6% to 35.2 riyals ($9.38) despite Goldman Sachs saying that it may stabilise its shares by purchasing additional shares on the market.

The stabilisation period will end on Jan. 9, but so far no transactions have been executed.

Gulf Union Cooperative Insurance gained earlier in the session, then went into reverse and closed 1.5% down. On Wednesday, the insurer signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Al Ahlia for Cooperative Insurance to evaluate a merger. Al Ahlia climbed 3.1%.

Egypt's blue-chip index fell 0.4%, weighed down by Commercial International Bank which was down 0.8% and Eastern Company which ended 4% lower.

Exchange data on Wednesday showed that Egyptians were net sellers of the stocks.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, major markets moved little and trade was thin in the absence of foreign investors during the Christmas holidays.

In Dubai, the index closed down 0.2% with blue-chip developer Emaar Properties and Emirates NBD Bank losing 1% and 0.4% respectively.

The Abu Dhabi index rose 0.4% as the country's largest lender First Abu Dhabi Bank added 0.5% and United Arab Bank soared 13.1%, its biggest gain since March.

The Qatari index edged up 0.1% led by Qatar National Bank and Commercial Bank, as the duo were up 0.7%.

SAUDI ARABIA fell 0.9% to 8,343 points

ABU DHABI gained 0.4% to 5,103 points

DUBAI slipped 0.2% to 2,773 points

QATAR edged up 0.1% to 10,445 points

EGYPT down 0.4% to 13,748 points

BAHRAIN added 0.2% to 1,603 points

OMAN  dropped 0.6% to 3,875 points

KUWAIT was down 0.3% at 6,956 points

($1 = 3.7519 riyals)

(Reporting by Ateeq Shariff in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Heavens) ((AteeqUr.Shariff@thomsonreuters.com; +918067497129;))