Boursa Kuwait stocks end session on a bearish note

Selling pressure returns to haunt market

KUWAIT: Boursa Kuwait ended last week in the red zone. The Price Index closed at 6,239.37 points, down by 1.11 percent from the week before closing, the Weighted Index decreased by 1.73 percent after closing at 395.99 points, whereas the KSX-15 Index closed at 906.27 points down by 2.13 percent. Furthermore, the week’s average daily turnover decreased by 19.01 percent, compared to the preceding week, reaching KD 11.43 million, whereas trading volume average was 56.23 million shares, recording a decrease of 29.27 percent.

The trading activity during the last week witnessed a return to the negative performance’s control over the three market indices, after a positive performance presence during the previous week, whereas the random selling operations returned, and executed on many listed stocks in the market, headed by the leading ones, and pushed the three indices to end the week’s trading in the losses zone, amid continued decrease in the trading levels, especially the value, which reached its lowest level in about a month on last Thursday, and reached KD 8.8 million only by the end of the same session.

On the other hand, Boursa Kuwait lost during the last week over KD 400 million, as its market capitalization reached KD26.52 billion after being KD 26.97 billion in the previous week, which means that the market recorded a loss of 1.64 percent of its total market cap, and its gains were reduced to reach 4.40 percent since the beginning of the current year compared to end of 2016, where it was KD 25.41 billion. (Note: The market cap for the listed companies in the Regular Market is calculated based on the average number of outstanding shares as per the latest available official financial statements).

As far as the daily trading activity; the first session of the week witnessed a drop in the three Boursa indices by different percentages, in light of the increased selling operations executed on the small-cap stocks in particular amid an overall decline that included most of the market sectors and headed by the Financial Services, which came in parallel with a relatively good increase in the value, as it recorded a growth of 25.17 percent. On the second session of the week, the market indices witnessed declines, however with less drop than the previous session, that came as a result to the continued control of the selling operations over the trading activity, amid a limited decrease in the trading levels, where the volume declined by 6.6 percent, while the value decreased by only 0.11 percent.

Moreover, the market continued its negative performance in the mid-week session, which witnessed an increased losses of the three indices, especially the Weighted and KSX-15 indices, which dropped by 1.46 percent and 1.17 percent respectively, affected by the increased random selling operations with concentration on the leading stocks, and in parallel with an increase in the cash liquidity by about 30 percent. On Wednesday’s session, the market witnessed a mixed closing to its three indices, whereas the Price Index and KSX-15 Index continued to record decline, however limited, while the Weighted Index was able to realize limited increase by the end of the session. Also, the three market indices were able to record gains at end of the week session, in light of the return of the purchasing operations executed on some leading and small-cap stocks, with a growth in the most of the market sectors leaded by the Financial Services sector.

For the annual performance, the Price Index ended last week recording 8.55 percent annual gain compared to its closing in 2016, while the Weighted Index increased by 4.18 percent, and the KSX-15 recorded 2.40 percent growth.

Bank sector stocks highest traded

Sectors’ Indices

Eight of Boursa Kuwait’s sectors ended last week in the red zone, three recorded increases, whereas the Health Care sector’s index closed with no change from the week before. The Consumer Services sector headed the losers list as its index declined by 4.72 percent to end the week’s activity at 897.93 points. The Real Estate sector was second on the losers’ list, which index declined by 2.97 percent, closing at 877.04 points, followed by the Oil & Gas sector, as its index closed at 927.64 points at a loss of 2.87 percent.The Telecommunications sector was the least declining as its index closed at 532.86 points with a 0.10 percent decrease.

On the other hand, last week’s highest gainer was the Insurance sector, achieving 3.02 percent growth rate as its index closed at 1,014.27 points. Whereas, in the second place, the Technology sector’s index closed at 556.83 points recording 0.52 percent increase. The Industrial sector came in third as its index achieved 0.19 percent growth, ending the week at 1,757.76 points.

Sectors’ Activity

The Financial Services sector dominated a total trade volume of around 129.32 million shares changing hands during last week, representing 46 percent of the total market trading volume. The Banks sector was second in terms of trading volume as the sector’s traded shares were 21.77 percent of last week’s total trading volume, with a total of around 61.20 million shares.

On the other hand, the Banks sector’s stocks were the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of around KD 26.50 million or 46.37 percent of last week’s total market trading value. The Financial Services sector took the second place as the sector’s last week turnover was approx. KD 12.70 million representing 22.22 percent of the total market trading value. — Prepared by: Studies & Research Department - Bayan Investment Co.