The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) set out positively yesterday but suddenly changed its direction toward south, reflecting a negative slope. The index closed lower at 6,641.3 points.

The index pared 21.66 points or 0.32 percent for the entire day. It wavered within a range of 48 points.

Among market cap indices only Large cap ended positively, as most of heavy weights closed in green, with SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) surging by 1.46 percent, Mobily 0.77 percent and Samba Financial Group 0.67 percent.

Transport sector outperformed, up 1.5 percent, while Media and Publishing sector slipped 2.04 percent for the day.

The market breadth was negative as out of 155 stocks traded yesterday, 34 were up and 107 were down while 14 remained unchanged. Insurance companies were among the top gainers, with Solidarity Saudi Takaful made the biggest jump up 9.9 percent among all Saudi equities.

BURUJ Insurance and Walaa Insurance, on the other hand, switched their position from top gainers of previous day to the biggest losers of the day, down 9.8 percent.

Heavy interest was also witnessed in Insurance sector, which liquidated more than 84.2 million shares, representing nearly one-third of the overall market volume.

Share trading activity remained low yesterday with volume of 247.4 million shares. The market's volume went 26.6 percent below the 50-day average of 337.1 million shares. Liquidity also shrank to SR 5.8 billion, 11.4 percent lower than the 50-day average of SR6.5 billion.