Kuwait oil price drops to $35.69pb

KUWAIT: Kuwait oil price dropped in Friday’s trades by 41 cents reaching $35.69 per barrel compared to $36.10pb in Thursday’s trades, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said yesterday. Crude contracts had lost 60 percent of their value since middle of 2014 due to the supply excess, estimated at 0.7 percent, amounting to 2.5 million barrels per day. The market glut may persist throughout next year.

KSE indices fall

Meanwhile, last week’s opening session at Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) witnessed a drastic fall of the main indices amid hefty stock sell-offs, thus causing liquidity to shrink, Al-Oula Al-Wasata (Brokerage) Company said in a report. Geo-political factors, namely turbulence at the regional and international levels, negatively affected the KSE trades over the past week. Profit pocketing and suspension of some companies from trading due to their failure to make financial disclosures on time fueled further the bearish trend of the national bourse. The bourse closed Thursday’s session with hike of the top indexes; 27.3 for the benchmark reaching 5,725 points, 2.92 for the weighted index and 7.73 by Kuwait-15 index.

News about Saudi Telecom’s bid to purchase Viva telecom’s stocks, which it does not own, lifted the KSE performance in general. Bulk of trades focused on cheap chips with quick earnings. However on Monday, in particular, investors focused on the blue-chips, with the Kuwait-15 luring up to 50 percent of the traded liquidity. These stocks were largely sold in the Wednesday session, thus sashing the liquidity to KD 10 million. —KUNA