Kuwait bourse kicks off week with modest gains
Mabanee gains 22 fils, stc flat
By John Mathews
KUWAIT CITY, April 26: Kuwait stocks pulled higher on Sunday as it kicked off the week on a positive note. The All Shares Index climbed 37.78 points to 4,723 pts driven mostly by heavyweights even as the starting session of the Holy month of Ramadan saw a sharp fall in volume.
The Premier Market jumped 49.22 points to 5,074.33 pts while Main Market sprinted 14.9 pts to 4,033.22 points paring the month’s losses to 50 points. The BK 50 Main index paced 211.58 points. The volume turnover meanwhile slipped below the 100 million mark after hitting the month’s highest level in the previous session. Over 91 million shares changed hands – a 57 pct drop from Thursday.
The sectors closed mostly in green. Real Estate outshone the rest with 1.62 percent gain whereas Oil Gas was the only sector to close unchanged. Banking sector continued to top in both value and volume with 43.67 million shares worth KD19.2 million.
Among the day’s standout performers, sector bellwether National Bank of Kuwait rallied 7 fils to 710 fils on back of 5.6 million shares recouping last session’s losses while Kuwait Finance House added 4 fils with brisk trading, Mabanee Co sprinted 22 fils to 580 fils with a volume of 1.7 million.
Zain took in 1 fil on back of 2.5 million shares to wind up at 2.5 million and Ooredoo was up 6 fils at 953 fils. stc stood pat at 801 fils while logistics major Agility saw modest rebound of 13 fils to close at 556 fils after moving 2.4 million shares at the counter. Humansoft Holding was up 5 fils at KD 2.615.
The market opened on a slightly weak note and moved flat in early trade. The main index headed north amid fresh buying in some of the counters and peaked at 4,737 points ahead of the mid-session. It gave up some of the gains before closing with modest gains.
Top gainer of the day, Argan rallied 10 pct to 91.3 fils and FutureKid climbed 9.35 percent to stand close behind. GIH skidded 18 percent, the steepest decliner of the day and Kuwait Finance topped the volume with 17.9 million shares
Reflecting the day’s upswing, the winners vastly outnumbered the losers. 94 stocks advanced whereas 27 closed lower. Of the 94 counters active on Sunday, 8 closed flat. 4,638 deals worth KD24.3 million were transacted during the session.
The market was mixed during the past week. The main index closed lower in three of the five sessions and shed 61 points week-on-week . It has skidded 100 points from start of the month and is trading 1,560 pts lower year-to-date.