Kuwait’s market kicks off week on gloomy note, volume turns anemic
Mabanee Co skids 19 fils, NAPESCO ticks higher
By John Mathews
Arab Times Staff
KUWAIT CITY, May 10: Kuwait stocks headed south on Sunday after incurring losses in the previous week. The All Shares Index dipped 49.56 points in lackluster trade to 4,812.56 points led by the blue chips even as the volume turnover turned markedly anemic.
The Premier Market slid 57.12 points to 5,173.05 pts taking the month’s losses to 183 pts while Main Market dropped 34.5 points. The BK 50 Main index was skidded 54.83 points to 3,980.19 points. The volume turnover meanwhile sank below the 100 million mark to hit a multi-month low. Over 49 million shares changed hands- a 61 percent plunge from the previous session.
The sectors closed mostly in red turf. Consumer Services outshone the rest with 0.84 pct gain whereas Consumer Goods slid 3 percent, the worst performer of the day. Banking sector continued to dominate in both volume and value with 27.6 million shares traded for KD 7.3 million.
Among the prominent losers, Kuwait Finance House dropped 7 fils to 576 fils after trading 4.7 million shares and has shed 20 fils from start of the month while National Bank of Kuwait extended Thursday’s losses with 4 fils slip to 730 fils. Mabanee Co skidded 19 fils to 592 fils taking the year’s losses to 313 fils.
Zain fell 3 fils to 513 fils after pushing 1.4 million shares at the counter while Ooredoo gave up 5 fils before settling at 625 fils. STC shed 15 fils and Agility was down 10 fils at 643 fils. Humansoft Holding tumbled 97 fils to KD 2.638. taking the month’s losses to 202 fils.
The market opened firm and edged higher in early trade. The main index scaled the day’s highest level of 4,845 points and flipped direction as sentiment soured. It drifted sideways thereafter and wrapped up the session with moderate losses.
Top gainer of the day, Unicap soared 10 pct to 39.6 fils and IFA Hotels and Resorts scaled 9 percent to stand next. Munsahaat skidded 9 percent, the steepest decliner of the day and Ahli United Bank topped the volume with 12,7 million shares.
Mirroring the day’s dip, the market spread was heavily skewed towards the losers. 19 stocks advanced whereas 66 closed lower. Of the 98 counters active on Sunday, 13 closed flat. 4,677 deals worth KD 11.3 million were transacted during the session.
National Industries Group fell 4 fils to 170 fils while Mezzan Holding
slid 22 fils to 562 fils. Boubyan Petrochemical Co was down 10 fils at 486 fils and Al Qurain dialed up 2 fils. NAPESCO took in 2 fils and Gulf Cable gave up 6 fils to close at 472 fils.
Kuwait Portland Cement dived 25 fils to 715 fils and Kuwait Cement Co clipped 2 fils. Kuwait Foundry Co slipped 9 fils to 241 fils and
Combined Group Contracting Co skidded 35 fils. KCPC was down 6 fils at 259 fils.
The market was largely downbeat during past week. The main index closed lower in three of the five sessions shedding 114 points weekon-week. It has slid 163 points from start of the month and is trading 1,471pts lower year-to-date.