Saudi Stock Market Changes Working Hours

Riyadh-Saudi banks are likely to change their working hours to openning 30 minutes earlier at 9:00 am and closing at 4:00 pm local time (GMT +3).

The news comes after the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) announced plans to change trading hours to between 10 am and 3:00 pm local time as of April 3, 2016, it said in a statement.

However, trading days will remain the same from Sunday till Thursday.

The Kingdom’s equity market is currently open from 11:00 am until 3:30 pm local time.

The pre-trading session will run from 09:30 am until 10:00 am local time, with a post-trading session held between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm local time, the statement added.

The pre-trading session is where buy and sell orders are either entered, modified (quantity or price) or cancelled. However, during this session, orders are neither matched nor executed but will remain held in the order book.

The trading session is where all functions in the preceding state are allowed in addition to matching and executing orders. The post-trading session is where orders entered during the trading session can either be canceled or expiry date be changed. Other changes to price or quantities are not allowed. In addition, no new orders are allowed during this session.

On Wednesday, Tadawul All-Share Index dropped 0.7 percent to close with 5,833 points, testing minor technical support at the early February low of 5,834 points.

Another close below that support would confirm a break, triggering a minor double top formed by the end-January and February highs and targeting about 5,600 points.