KUWAIT CITY, March 26: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended last week in the green zone, as both its main indices recorded gains. The price index ended last week with an increase amounted to 0.34 percent, while the weighted index raised 0.50 percent compared to the closings of the week before. Furthermore, last week’s average daily turnover decreased by 10.03 percent, compared to the preceding week, reaching K.D 31.26 million, whereas trading volume average was 171.37 million shares, recording a retreat of 8.42 percent.
Moreover, the general performance of the market marked with limited changes on daily basis, as KSE came under the political impact of the hearing requests for both His Highness the Prime Minister and - the Deputy Prime Minister for the Economic Affairs. As a result, caution state dominated the market, which was reflected on the daily market activities.

On the other hand, negative effects arising from the political events in several Arab countries contained to be present in the market; yet, its effect was less than the previous weeks.
In addition, the listed company results were contained as main player in the market during last week, where the majority of the listed companies still didn’t announce its annual results, as only 53 percent of listed companies announced its results until mid of Thursday.
By the end of the week, the price index closed at 6,285.0 points, up by 0.34 percent from the week before closing, whereas the weighted index registered a 0.50 percent weekly gain after closing at 440.09 points.

Sectors’ Indices
Five of KSE’s sectors ended last week in the green zone, while the other three recorded declines. Last week’s highest gainer was the Food sector, achieving 1.89 percent growth rate as its index closed at 4,387.0 points. Whereas, in the second place, the Real Estate sector’s index closed at 2,154.4 points recording 1.37 percent increase. The Services sector came in third as its index achieved 1.34 percent growth, ending the week at 14,201.0 points. The Banks sector was the least growing as its index closed at 11,544.3 points with a 0.002 percent increase.
On the other hand, the Industry sector headed the losers list as its index declined by 1.51 percent to end the week’s activity at 4,515.3 points. The Insurance sector was second on the losers’ list, which index declined by 0.79 percent, closing at 2,538.2 points, followed by the Investment sector, as its index closed at 4,241.5 points at a weekly loss of 0.50 percent.

Sectors’ Activity
The Investment sector dominated total trade volume during last week with 265.64 million shares changing hands, representing 31 percent of the total market trading volume. The Real Estate sector was second in terms trading volume as the sector’s traded shares were 25.38 percent of last week’s total trading volume, with a total of 217.46 million shares. On the other hand, the Banks sector’s stocks where the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of KD 61.03 million or 39.05 percent of last week’s total market trading value. The Services sector took the second place as the sector’s last week turnover of KD 44.21 million represented 28.29 percent of the total market trading value.

Market Capitalization
KSE total market capitalization grew by 0.50 percent during last week to reach KD 31.56 billion, as five of KSE’s sectors recorded an increase in their respective market capitalization, whereas the other three recorded declines. The Real Estate sector headed the growing sectors as its total market capitalization reached KD 1.73 billion, increasing by 1.87 percent.
The Food sector was the second in terms of recorded growth with 1.65 percent increase after the total value of its listed companies reached KD 724.73 million. The third place was for the Non Kuwaiti Companies sector, which total market capitalization reached KD 1.90 billion by the end of the week, recording an increase of 0.97 percent. The Investment sector was the least growing with 0.50 percent recorded growth after its market capitalization amounted to KD 2.45 billion.

On the other hand, the Industry sector headed the decliners list as its total market capitalization decreased by 1.01 percent to reach, by the end of the week, KD 2.40 billion. The Insurance sector was second on this list, which market value of its listed companies declined by 0.95 percent, reaching KD 299.62 million, followed by the Services sector.
, as its market capitalization amounted to KD 8.83 billion at a 0.07 percent decrease.