Kuwait bourse wraps up week on soggy note
NBK slips 8 fils, Humansoft Holding gains
KUWAIT CITY, Oct 22: Kuwait stocks headed south on Thursday to end the week on a soggy note. The Al Shares Index snapped the two-day upswing with a 38.96 points drop to 5,618.43 pts weighed by a bout of profit taking in some of the counters.
The Premier Market slid 49.73 points to 6,230.87 points while Main Market shed 16.88 points. The BK 50 Main was down 16.32 points at 4,464 pts. The volume turnover meanwhile receded following Wednesday’s bounce. Over 202 million shares changed hands – down 28 pct from the day before.
The sectors closed mostly in red zone. Insurance outshone the rest with 1.48 pct gain whereas Technology dived 1.69 percent, the worst performer of the day. Volume wise, Financial Services topped with 61.6 million shares while Banking sector dominated the volume with 18.8 million shares.
In the individual shares, National Bank of Kuwait slipped 8 fils to 877 fils after moving over 7 million shares while Kuwait Finance House was down 7 fils at 689 fils with a volume of 6.8 million shares. Humansoft Holding extended last session’s gains with 39 fils jump to KD 2.991 and Tamdeen Investment shed 14 fils.
Zain was unchanged at 611 fils after moving 5.3 million shares whereas Ooredoo climbed 4 fils. stc fell 3 fils to 852 fils and logistics major Agility followed suit to end at 670 fils. Boursa dialed down 2 fils while KIPCO eased 1 fil to 160 fils. Kuwait Investment Co gave up 5 fils after trading 1.4 million shares and KAMCO stood pat at 74.7 fils.
The market opened firm and edged lower in early trade. The main index continued to retreat well past the mid-session amid profit selling in some of the counters and pared back some of the losses in the final minutes before closing with moderate losses.
Top gainer of the day, National Shooting Range rallied 9.8 percent to 16.7 fils and Al Rai Media Group climbed 5.9 pct to stand next. Kuwait
Hotels tumbled 30 percent, the steepest decliner of the day and ALOLA topped the volume with over 202 million shares.
Mirroring the day’s drop, the losers outnumbered the winners, 27 stocks advanced whereas 83 closed lower.
Of the 135 counters active Thursday, 25 closed flat. 9,696 deals worth KD 34 million were transacted during the session.
National Industries Group fell 4 fils to 199 fils after pushing over 5 million shares and Mezzan Holding gave up 3 fils. Boubyan Petrochemical Co erased 3 fils and Al Qurain stood pat at 308 fils. Integrated Holding was down 4 fils at 375 fils and Aznoula eased 1 fil to 330 fils.
Jazeera Airways was unchanged at 570 fils and ALAFCO took in 1 fil before ending at 166 fils.
OSOS slipped 3.3 fils to 87.2 fils while Oula Fuel and Soor paused at 118 fils and 119 fis respectively. Advanced Technology Co was flat at 600 fils and FutureKid closed 4 fils in red. IFA Hotels and Resorts paused at 22.5 fils.
Kuwait Cement Co was unchanged at 228 fils and Kuwait Portland Cement too did not budge from its earlier close of 785 fils. NICBM eased 1 fil to 155 fils whereas ACICO Industries and Kuwait National Cinema Co held ground at 103 fils and 700 fils respectively. Automated Systems Co clipped 1.2 fils and KCPC climbed 5 fils to 320 fils.
Kuwait Foundry Co dialed down 1 fil while Independent Petroleum Group and Heavy Engineering Industries and Shipbuilding Co stood pat at 430 fils and 378 fils respec
tively. Gulf Cable shed 10 fils and Warbacap ticked 0.1 fil into green. Combined Group Contracting Co clipped 1 fil.
In the banking sector, Gulf Bank fell 3 fils to 238 fils after trading over 13 million shares and Kuwait International Bank closed 2 fils in red.
Burgan Bank slipped 4 fils to 214 fils and Boubyan Bank dialed down 2 fils. Ahli United Bank shed 4 fils with a volume of over 7 million and Warba Bank clipped 2 fils.
The market has been largely down beat during the week. The main index closed lower in three of the five sessions week, shedding 117 pts week-on-week. It has scaled 173 points from start of the month and is down 664 points year-to-date.