Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended the week trading in the green zone with variance in the gains made by its main indices, a specialized economic report showed Saturday.
The report, by Bayan Investment Company, stated that the Price Index closed at 7,350.34 points, up by 1.61 percent from the week before closing, the Weighted Index increased by 1.07 percent after closing at 494.44 points, whereas the KSX-15 Index closed 1,212.99 points up by 0.65 percent.
Furthermore, last week’s average daily turnover increased by 8.33 percent, compared to the preceding week, reaching K.D 21.72 million, whereas trading volume average was 226.35 million shares, recording an increase of 28.33 percent.
The stock market indicators were able to realize gains for the fourth consecutive week, in light of the active purchasing trend that included many of the listed stocks, especially the small-cap ones, and the companies that realized growth in its semi-annual financial results when compared with the same of last year, among an optimism state controlled the traders, especially after the decrease in the number of the banned companies from trading, which were not able to disclose its results, whereas the number of the banned companies reached 9 only.
In addition, the traders’ concentration on the small-cap and mid-cap stocks during the last week’s activity lead to a state of peace and quiet on the large-cap and the blue-chip stocks, which affected the performance of the Weighted Index and KSX-15 Index, that measure such stocks performance.
Moreover, the stock market witnessed during last week a return to the speculative operations to affect the trading direction, however was positive on the stock market indicators, especially the Price Index which was able to break the 7,300 point level for the first time in more than two months.
For the annual performance, the price index ended last week recording 2.64 percent annual loss compared to its closing in 2013, while the weighted index increased by 9.18 percent, and the KSX-15 13.53 percent growth.
All of KSE’s sectors ended last week in the green zone except for one sector. Last week’s highest gainer was the Oil & Gas sector, achieving 4.80 percent growth rate as its index closed at 1,253.76 points. Whereas, in the second place, the Financial Services sector’s index closed at 1,016.70 points recording 2.96 percent increase. The Basic Materials sector came in third as its index achieved 1.64 percent growth, ending the week at 1,234.35 points.
The Insurance sector was the least growing as its index closed at 1,188.40 points with a 0.61 percent increase. On the other hand, the Consumer Services sector was last week’s only loser as its index declined by 0.30 percent to end the week’s activity at 1,151.43 points.
The Financial services sector dominated total trade volume during last week with 592.84 million shares changing hands, representing 52.38 percent of the total market trading volume. The Real Estate sector was second in terms of trading volume as the sector’s traded shares were 21.76 percent of last week’s total trading volume, with a total of 246.24 million shares.
On the other hand, the Financials Services sector’s stocks were the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of K.D 36.25 million or 33.38 percent of last week’s total market trading value. The Banking sector took the second place as the sector’s last week turnover was K.D 20.08 million represented 18.48 percent of the total market trading value.
Source : KUNA Kuwait News agency
