Saudi Stock Market Trading Journal

Tadawul — the Saudi Exchange — is the largest stock market in the Middle East and Africa by market capitalization, at approximately $2.8 trillion USD as of 2024. Its composition is unlike any other major exchange: a single company, Saudi Aramco, accounts for roughly 60-70% of the entire index weight, creating concentration dynamics that require specific journaling discipline to manage. Combined with a Sunday-Thursday trading week, Sharia-compliant financing mechanics, and a currency pegged to the USD at a fixed 3.75 rate, Tadawul demands a journal structure tailored to its unique characteristics — not a generic stock trading template.

Key Statistics

Metric	Value	Source
Total Market Cap	~$2.8 trillion USD	Tadawul 2024
Listed Companies (TASI)	200+	Saudi Exchange
Aramco Index Weight	~60-70% of TASI	Saudi Exchange
Saudi Aramco IPO Size	$25.6 billion (Dec 2019)	Tadawul/Aramco
SAR/USD Peg	3.75 (fixed since 1986)	SAMA
Settlement Cycle	T+2	Saudi Exchange

These figures underscore a structural reality: any index trading approach on TASI that excludes Aramco will produce tracking error that is more Aramco-specific than portfolio-construction genius. Journaling performance against a TASI ex-Aramco benchmark is often more informative than using the headline TASI index.

Trading Hours

Session	Open	Close	Timezone
Pre-Market	09:30	10:00	AST (UTC+3)
Regular Session	10:00	15:30	AST (UTC+3)

Trading runs Sunday through Thursday only. For traders in New York, the regular session corresponds to 02:00–07:30 ET in winter (EST) — entirely pre-US open. London-based traders see overlap with the start of the European morning session. The practical implication: Tadawul’s close on Thursday is followed by a 64-hour gap before Sunday’s open, during which US Friday trading, weekend macro news, and Asian Sunday futures all accumulate. Sunday gaps are a structural feature of this market, not an anomaly.

Popular Instruments

Large-Cap Anchors

• Saudi Aramco (2222.SR) — The world’s largest oil company by market cap and the unavoidable index factor. Every TASI portfolio has implicit Aramco exposure.
• Al Rajhi Bank (1120.SR) — The world’s largest Islamic bank by assets; a primary vehicle for traders seeking financial sector exposure with confirmed Sharia compliance.
• Saudi National Bank (1180.SR) — Formed from the merger of NCB and Samba, one of the most liquid banking stocks on the exchange.
• SABIC (2010.SR) — Saudi Basic Industries Corporation; the dominant petrochemical play and a key non-oil diversification vehicle despite upstream energy ties.
• stc (7010.SR) — Saudi Telecom Company; the leading telecom name and a favored defensive play when oil prices soften.

Vision 2030 Diversification Plays Newer listings and PIF-backed companies in tourism, entertainment, and renewable energy are gaining traction. These names carry thinner float and higher volatility than the large-cap anchors, making precise journal entries critical for tracking slippage and execution quality.

Nomu Parallel Market Smaller growth companies list on the Nomu market with lighter listing requirements. Liquidity is lower; position sizing discipline and detailed entry/exit logging are especially important here.

Popular Brokers

Broker	Import to JournalPlus	Notes
Al Rajhi Capital	Not supported	Largest retail brokerage in Saudi Arabia
SNB Capital	Not supported	Part of Saudi National Bank group
Aljazira Capital	Not supported	Full-service Saudi broker
Interactive Brokers	Supported	Access via QFI route for eligible accounts
Saxo Bank	Supported	Offers Saudi equities via CFD and direct access

For traders using local Saudi brokers, manual CSV import or trade-by-trade entry remains the primary workflow in JournalPlus. International brokers with direct Tadawul access, such as Interactive Brokers, support automated import, reducing reconciliation effort significantly.

Challenges & Solutions

Aramco Concentration Distorts Benchmark Performance

Saudi Aramco’s ~60-70% TASI weight means that a portfolio benchmarked against the index is effectively a correlated Aramco bet. Periods when your portfolio diverges from TASI are often Aramco-driven, not skill-driven — making raw alpha calculations misleading.

Solution: Log Aramco’s daily return in every journal entry, even when you hold no Aramco shares. Calculate your portfolio’s daily return against both TASI and TASI ex-Aramco. JournalPlus’s custom metrics fields let you track this divergence over time, revealing whether outperformance is genuine or a function of Aramco’s direction.

Sunday Open Absorbs 64 Hours of Global News

Between Thursday’s close and Sunday’s open, US equity markets trade a full Friday session, weekend macro developments occur, and Asian futures open Sunday morning before Tadawul. Sunday’s open price can gap materially — both up and down — based on news that has nowhere else to be priced until Sunday at 10:00 AST.

Solution: Build a Saturday night pre-session review into your weekly routine. Document Friday’s US close levels, any significant weekend news, and write an explicit Sunday gap thesis before the open. Tag each journal entry with the day of week; over 20-30 trades, patterns in Sunday versus midweek behavior become statistically visible.

Sharia-Compliant Position Sizing Without Conventional Margin

Murabaha-based margin financing — the Sharia-compliant alternative to conventional leveraged accounts — has different availability windows, financing cost structures, and drawdown mechanics than standard margin. Position-sizing formulas that assume overnight interest accrual do not translate directly.

Solution: Log murabaha financing terms as dedicated fields: rate (annualized), limit available, and expiry date. Record the Sharia screening tool used (Zoya, IdealRatings) and compliance status at entry. No overnight interest accrues on correctly structured murabaha positions — note this explicitly in your journal so cost-basis calculations remain accurate.

Vision 2030 Sector Rotation: Narrative vs. Returns

Entertainment, tourism, and renewable energy plays have attracted attention as Vision 2030 diversification vehicles. But many PIF-backed names carry elevated valuations relative to current earnings, and return profiles vary significantly from their oil-linked counterparts. Without systematic journaling, traders can conflate sector narrative strength with actual return generation.

Solution: Tag every trade as either “oil-linked” or “V2030 diversification” at entry. Quarterly cohort reviews in JournalPlus reveal whether the diversification thesis is delivering positive expectancy or whether returns remain dominated by energy-linked names.

QFI Foreign Ownership Cap Monitoring

When cumulative foreign ownership in a sector approaches 49%, new foreign buy orders are rejected by the exchange. Traders using international brokers may place limit orders that silently go unfilled if the cap is reached between order submission and execution.

Solution: Check the Saudi Exchange’s daily foreign ownership disclosure before entering positions in sectors with active QFI demand (banking, petrochemicals). Log the foreign ownership percentage at entry date in your journal. If an order fails to fill, the cap level provides an immediate diagnostic.

Journaling Tips for Tadawul

Track TASI and Aramco separately on every trade date. Logging Aramco’s daily return next to your positions — even when you hold no Aramco — is the fastest way to decompose whether your P&L is market-driven or stock-specific.

Convert SAR to USD at 3.75 on every entry. The fixed peg makes this arithmetic, not analysis: SAR 42,500 = $11,333. Recording both figures prevents mental accounting drift across accounts denominated in different currencies.

Document weekend macro context before Sunday’s open. The 64-hour gap is the defining rhythm of trading in Saudi Arabia. A journal note written Saturday night — “S&P 500 closed -1.8% Friday on tariff news; expecting Tadawul gap down Sunday” — provides invaluable context when reviewing the trade weeks later.

Tag day-of-week at entry. Consider this example: a trader buys 500 shares of Al Rajhi Bank (1120.SR) at SAR 85.00 on a Sunday open following a positive US jobs report released the prior Friday. The position carries a SAR 1,500 risk to a stop at SAR 82.00 (~$400) and a SAR 92.00 target. By Thursday close at SAR 90.50, the trader journals a partial exit of 250 shares — locking SAR 1,375 profit — and trails the stop on the remaining 250 shares to SAR 87.00. The weekly review notes that the Sunday gap-up faded by Tuesday, a pattern worth tagging for future reference. That tag becomes a swing trading edge data point across 30+ trades.

Note FOMC meeting dates in macro context. Because the SAR/USD peg means Saudi monetary policy follows the Federal Reserve mechanically, FOMC decisions affect Saudi bank lending rates and equity valuations directly. Flag upcoming Fed meetings in your journal’s macro field.

Key Metrics to Track

• TASI daily return vs. portfolio daily return — The primary benchmark comparison; decompose further by stripping out Aramco’s contribution
• Aramco (2222.SR) daily return — Log for every session as an index factor, regardless of holdings
• Day-of-week at entry — Identifies Sunday gap behavior patterns vs. midweek entries
• SAR P&L and USD equivalent — Both figures at the 3.75 peg for cross-account comparability
• Murabaha financing cost — Annualized rate and SAR amount outstanding per leveraged position
• Sharia compliance score and tool — Screening tool used (Zoya, IdealRatings), score, and date verified
• Foreign ownership % at entry — For QFI-capped sectors; flag if above 45% (approaching 49% ceiling)
• Vision 2030 sector tag — “oil-linked” vs. “diversification play” cohort classification
• Weekend gap magnitude on Sunday — Document the gap size at Sunday’s 10:00 open vs. Thursday’s close

How JournalPlus Helps

JournalPlus’s custom fields system is particularly suited to Tadawul’s unusual structure. Traders can create fields for Aramco’s daily return, murabaha financing terms, and QFI foreign ownership levels — capturing the market-specific data that generic journaling templates omit entirely. The multi-currency display handles SAR-to-USD conversion at the fixed 3.75 peg automatically, ensuring P&L records remain clean across both denominations.

The tagging system supports the Vision 2030 cohort tracking approach described above. Applying consistent tags at entry — “V2030,” “oil-linked,” “Islamic banking,” “Sunday gap” — takes under ten seconds per trade and enables quarterly reviews that surface statistical patterns in sector performance. Traders who have run 50+ Tadawul entries in JournalPlus report that the Sunday vs. midweek entry tag alone reveals behavioral patterns in their gap-trading discipline.

For traders using international brokers with Tadawul access, JournalPlus supports direct import from Interactive Brokers and Saxo Bank, eliminating manual entry for most trade data. Traders on local Saudi brokers can use CSV upload or manual entry; the journal structure remains identical regardless of import method, ensuring performance metrics stay consistent across broker switches.