Kuwait bourse heads south, volume shrinks
KFH sheds 13 fils, Humansoft Holding flat
KUWAIT CITY, April 13: Kuwait stocks swung lower on Tuesday extending last session’s pullback. The All Shares Index, after a strong start, dipped 25.41 points to 5,932.63 pts weighed by heavyweights even as the broader sentiment remained mixed.
The Premier Market slid 44.56 points to 6,497.61 pts paring the month’s gains to 163 points while Main Market climbed 18.52 pts. The BK Main 50 was up 8 pts at 4,991.92 points. The volume turnover meanwhile shrank for the second for the second straight session. Over 225 million shares changed hands – a 42 pct dip from the day before.
The sectors closed mixed. Insurance outshone the rest with 1.65 percent gain whereas Consumer Discretionary slid 0.99 pct, the worst performer of the day. Volume wise, Financial Services topped with over 99 million shares while Banking sector was ahead in value with KD 16.3 million.
In the individual shares, sector bellwether National Bank of Kuwait slipped 5 fils to 823 fils after trading over 2 million shares while Kuwait Finance House gave up 13 fils with a volume of 10.5 million and has shed 54 fils monthto-date. Boubyan Bank slipped 9 fils to 625 fils. Mabanee Co dialed down 2 fils.
Zain fell 2 fils to 604 fils and Ooredoo inched 1fil lower. stc fell 4 fils to 898 fils and logistics major Agility dropped 12 fils to 752 fils after pushing over 2 million shares. Humansoft Holding stood pat at KD 3.888 and Mezzan Holding erased 4 fils. YIACO Medical dropped 15 fils to 460 fils with thin trading whereas Kuwait National Cinema Co jumped 32 fils to 732 fils.
National Industries Group was unchanged at 199 fils and Gulf Cable was down 9 fils at 839 fils. Boubyan Petrochemical Co paced 10 fils and Al Qurain Petrochemical Co held ground at 402 fils and Integrated Holding too did not budge from its earlier close of 414 fils. Jazeera Airways skidded 34 fils to 658 fils extending last session’s losses while ALAFCO stalled at 209 fils.
The market opened slightly gap down and edged lower in early trade. It rebounded back into green turf to scale the day’s highest level of 5963 points and headed south as selling pressure weighed on some of the blue chips. It continued to erode and wrapped up with moderate losses.
Top gainer of the day, Massaleh soared 10.83 percent to 39.9 fils and Kuwait Real Estate sprinted 9 pct to stand next. QIC dropped 4.93 percent, the steepest decliner of the day and Arzan topped the volume with 32.7 million shares.
Despite the day’s losses, the market spread almost even. 51 stocks advanced whereas 53 closed lower. Of the 126 counters active on Tuesday, 22 closed flat. 9,164 deals worth KD 37.9 million were transacted during the session.
In the banking sector, Gulf Bank was unchanged at 215 fils after pushing 7.8 million shares while Kuwait International Bank closed 3 fils in red. Burgan Bank tripped 1 fil and Ahli United Bank BSC clipped 2 fils with brisk trading. Warba Bank took in 1 fil whereas Commercial Bank and Ahli United Bank Kuwait paused at 500 fils and 314 fils respectively. Al Ahli Bank gave up 2 fils.
Kuwait Foundry Co climbed 9 fils to 280 fils and Educational Holding scaled 18 fils to settle at 350 fils. United Projects Co pushed 9 fils into green and Combined Group Contracting Co gave up 3 fils.
The market has been mixed so far during the week, adding 10 points in last three sessions. It has rallied 160 points from start of the month and is up 263 points year-to-date.