RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s banks' index, which captures the performance of major banks listed on the Kingdom’s stock market, dropped on Tuesday despite receiving higher credit ratings by Fitch.
It went down by 0.8 percent as of noon Saudi time, amid trading of nearly 18.4 million shares.
Banks in the index include but are not limited to Riyad Bank, the Saudi British Bank, Banque Saudi Fransi, Arab National Bank, Alinma Bank, Saudi Investment Bank, and Bank Aljazira.
Fitch Ratings has revised the outlook of the seven banks in addition to Gulf International Bank Saudi Arabia from stable to positive, while affirming their long-term issuer default rating, also known as IDR at BBB+.
Fitch said the rating of these eight banks is driven by their government support ratings.
“This is applied to all Saudi banks, reflecting our view of a high probability of support for all the country’s lenders from the Saudi authorities, if needed,” it said.
