Kuwait market notches robust gains
National Bank of Kuwait rallies 12 fils, Agility slips
By John Mathews
KUWAIT CITY, April 12: Kuwait stocks swung higher on Sunday as it kicked off the week on an upbeat note. The All Shares Index outlived a mid-session slump to scale 55.45 points and close at 4651 pts led by heavyweights.
The Premier Market jumped 73.79 points to 4984.77 pts trimming the month’s losses to 214 points and Main Index was up 18.79 points at 3997.95 pts. The BK 50 Main index gained 21 points. The volume turnover meanwhile fell sharply following last session’s surge. Over 89 million shares changed hands – down 52 pct from Thursday.
The sectors closed mostly in green territory. Real Estate outshone the rest with 1.86 pct while Consumer Services slipped 0.61 percent, the worst performer of the day. Banking sector continued to dominate in volume and value with 56.2 million shares worth KD 17.49 million.
Among the prime movers, sector bellwether National Bank of Kuwait rallied 12 fils to 692 fils on back of 5.8 million shares while Kuwait Finance House gained 8 fils with 8.7 million shares and is down 197 fils year-todate. Humansoft Holding soared 170 fils to KD 1.650.
Zain rose 4 fils to 462 fils after pushing 2.8 million shares while Ooredoo stood pat pat 590 fils off early lows. STC soared 30 fils to 790 fils and logistics major Agility gave up 5 fils before settling at 554 fils taking year’s losses to 304 fils. Mabanee Co rallied 10 fils to wind up at 570 fils.
The market opened firm and headed south in early trade. The main index continued to erode and plumbed the day’s lowest level of 4581 points almost halfway into the session. It clawed back into the green turf amid fresh buying in some of the heavyweights before closing with impressive gains.
Top gainer of the day, Argan spiked 14.9 percent while United Real Estate climbed 9.9 percent to stand next. IFA Hotels and Resorts skidded 23.2 pct and Kuwait International Bank topped the volume with 18.4 million.
Mirroring the day’s upswing, the winners vastly outled the losers. 65 stocks advanced whereas 30 closed lower. Of the 108 counters active on Sunday, 13 closed flat. 5721 deals worth KD 23 million were transacted during the session.
National Industries Group rose 4 fils on back of 2.8 million shares while Mezzan Holding added 2 fils to close at 578 fils. Boubyan Petrochemical Co slipped 5 fils to 450 fils and Al Qurain Petrochemical took in 1 fils. Integrated Holding climbed 6 fils to 430 fils. Jazeera Airways rose 3 fils to 504 fils while Combined Group Contracting Co was up 3 fils at 200 fils extending last session’s robust gains. Oula Fuel climbed 4 fils to 100 fils and Soor Fuel dialed up 2.5 fils before settling at 99.5 fils. FutureKid sprinted 4.4 fils to 88.3 fils.
Kuwait Cement Co and Gulf Cable paused at 150 fils and 450 fils respectively whereas Kuwait Portland Cement soared 64 fils to 865 fils after slipping into a trough in the previous session. Heavy Engineering Industries and Shipbuilding Co rose 4 fils to 368 fils whereas NICBM gave up 4 fils.
In the banking sector, Gulf Bank rallied 12 fils on back of 7.7 million shares while Burgan Bank scaled 7 fils to end at 197 fils. Boubyan Bank gained 5 fils and Ahli United Bank took in 1 fils after trading 9.2 million shares. Warba Bank sprinted 7 fils to 187 fils and Al Ahli Bank clipped 2 fils. Al Mutahed fell 3 fils to 255 fils.
KIPCO rose 3 fils to 162 fils and KAMCO eased 0.2 fils. Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz) dialed up 2.6 fils and Noor Investment gained 4.9 fils. KMEFIC gave up 3 fils and Sokouk inched 1 fils into green.
The market was mixed during past week. The main index closed lower in two of the five sessions, shedding 106 points week-on-week. It had tumbled 171 points from start of the month and is trading 1630 pts lower year-to-date.