Kuwait bourse notches hefty gains
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KUWAIT CITY, May 27: Kuwait stocks rallied strongly on Wednesday extending last week’s gains.
The All Shares Index soared 106.7 points in a broad advance to 50520.40 points led by blue chips as investors piled into select counters after the Eid holidays.
The Premier Market spiked 157 points to 5453 pts taking the month’s gains to 97 pts while Main Market ticked 5 pts up to 4166 points. The BK 50 Index inched 1.23 points up to 4056 pts.
The volume turnover meanwhile breached the 200 million mark for the first time during the month. Over 212 million shares changed hands. All sectors barring one closed in green. Basic Materials outshone the rest with 3.93 percent gain whereas Insurance, the only loser slipped 0.22 pct. Banking sector continued to dominate in both volume and value with 116.9 million shares worth KD 35.53 million. Among the prime movers, National Bank of Kuwait jumped 24 fils to 776 fils on back of over 7 million shares while Kuwait Finance House galloped 24 fils to 620 fils with brisk trading taking the month’s gains to 26 fils.
Mabanee Co climbed 17 fils to 603 fils. Zain rallied 11 fils to 541 fils on back of over 3 million shares while Ooredoo climbed 8 fils to 647 fils. STC fell 3 fils to 835 fils and logistics major Agility sprinted 25 fils to 659 fils. Humansoft Holding climbed 16 fils to KD 2.686 partly recouping last session’s losses.
The market opened firm and headed north in early trading. The main index scaled the day’s highest level of 5034 pts amid strong buying in most of the heavyweights and sagged slightly.
It drifted sideways thereafter and closed with hefty gains. Top gainer of the day, Kuwait Real Estate rallied 9.94 pct to 188 fils and Sanam Real Estate scaled 9.91 percent to stand close behind. KMEFIC skidded 9.7 pct, the steepest decliner of the day and Ahli United Bank topped the volume with 38.7 million shares.
Reflecting the day’s strong gains, the market spread was heavily skewed towards the winners. 80 stocks advanced whereas 27 closed lower. Of the 116 counters active on Wednesday, 9 closed fl at. 10.377 deals worth KD 46.59 million were transacted during the session. National Industries Group rose 6 fils to 176 fils on back of 4.5 million shares and Mezzan Holding dialed up 2 fils before settling at 582 fils.
Boubyan Petrochemical Co sprinted 28 fils to 505 fils and Al Qurain Petrochemical Co gained 8 fils . Integrated Holding was pulled 12 fils higher to 384 fils. Jazeera Airways soared 36 fils to 568 fils and SPEC added 3 fils. OSOS and KCPC fell 5 fils each to close at 98 fils and 258 fils respectively. Kuwait Cement Co scaled 6 fils on back of over 1 million shares and Kuwait Portland Cement jumped 34 fils.
ACICO Industries dialed up 2 fils. NAPESCO rose 11 fils to KD 1.010 and Kuwait Foundry Co gained 13 fils. Gulf Cable took in 2 fils while Heavy Engineering Industries and Shipbuilding Co added 4 fils. In the banking sector, Gulf Bank rallied 7 fils on back of 14.9 million shares while Burgan Bank and Kuwait International Bank gained 5 fils each to close at 199 fils and 181 fils respectively. Boubyan Bank was up 6 fils at 505 fils. The market was buoyant during previous week. The main index closed higher in all five sessions gaining 214 points week-on-week. It has gained 45 points from start of the month and has retreated 1282 points year-to-date
By John Mathews Arab Times Staff
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