Foreign ownership on Saudi Tadawul soars $81.76mln in week

Riyadh – The value of foreign ownership on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) increased by SAR 306.64 million during the week ended on 23 July, reaching SAR 177.34 billion when compared to SAR 177.03 billion in the previous week.

Foreign ownership of issued shares went up to 2.12% last week from 2.10% a week before, whilst ownership of free shares remained unchanged at 12.45%, according to official data.

This growth was boosted by higher share ownership value of strategic investors by SAR 269.8 million at SAR 37.06 billion, representing 0.44% of issued shares.

Likewise, ownership of qualified investors rose by SAR 76.31 million last week to stand at SAR 127.4 billion, representing 1.52% of issued shares. Similarly, ownership of resident investors and others hiked by SAR 25.13 million to SAR 9.02 billion, representing 0.11% of issued shares.

On the other hand, the value of shares owned by Saudis reached SAR 8.16 trillion by the end of last week, a weekly contraction of SAR 77.14 billion. Saudi ownership of issued shares edged down to 97.42% from 97.44%, while that of free shares levelled up to 85.31% from 85.30%.

Additionally, the value of shares owned by GCC nationals shrank by SAR 147.5 million to register SAR 38.78 billion by the end of last week. Their ownership of issued shares stabilised at 0.46% while that of free shares came in at 2.24%.

On a weekly basis, the market cap value of listed shares on Tadawul dropped by SAR 76.98 billion last week, recording SAR 8.37 trillion.