KUWAITI CITY : Kuwait stocks scaled new high on Sunday on back of moderate gains by blue chips.
The market rose 45.7 points in choppy trading led by National Bank of Kuwait and Zain even as middle level stocks saw some profit taking. Zain climbed 1.5 percent, reversing the losses on Thursday, while the lender nudged over 1 percent up. The investors sentiments were slightly positive as the bourse extended the unabated gaining spree to the sixth straight session. Banking stock closed mixed. Kuwait Finance House took in 20 fils whereas Gulf Bank and Commercial Bank of Kuwait closed flat.
Telecom major Wataniya jumped 40 fils while Agility and National Industries Group rose 20 fils each. NREC rallied 50 fils whereas KIPCO and Global Investment House gained 20 fils each. KSE index edged 0.3 percent up to end at 15,597.7 points amid a drop in volume turnover.
Real Estate
Notable among the losers, Mabanee Co fell 20 fils while Egypt Kuwait Holding shed 40 fils. The market had been fairly buoyant during the past week, propped by bullish sentiments. It closed up in all five sessions and added 242 points week-on-week. The bourse is up 24.7 percent since the start of the year, the third best performer in the region, after Doha and Muscat. The sectoral indices swung mostly higher. Banking sector climbed 0.5 percent supported by NBK and Kuwait Finance House while investment sector rallied 0.6 percent on back of some of the large caps led by KIPCO and Bayan Investment Co. The two sectors makes for the bulk of the shares traded in the bourse.
Real estate rose 0.4 percent aided by NREC while industrials jumped 0.8 percent led by National Industries Group and Mena Holding. Services edged 0.2 percent up helped by moderate gains blue chips led by Wataniya Telecom. In the bourse related news, Islamic lender Kuwait Finance House - Jordan, (subsidiary of KFH Bahrain which itself is a subsidiary of Kuwait Finance House) has bought a 28 percent stake in Jordan's Deera Investment and Real Estate Development Co for 28 million Jordanian dinars ($33.9 million), a Deera official said on Sunday. Through its stake in Deera, KFH-Jordan hopes to tap growing foreign investment in Jordan in the hotel sector.
Salhiyah Real Estate Co plans to set up a real estate company in Saudi Arabia with a capital of 800 million riyal ($213.3 million) to manage projects worth 25 billion riyals. ChemiKuwait Chemical Industries Co has announced that the company is planning to reduce its capital to KD 10 million from the present KD 3 million and intends to list on the Kuwait Stock Exchange. The volume of shares dropped 15 percent to 398.4 million. Banking sector almost doubled it turnover while investment sector fell a slight 2 percent. Real estate rose by almost one-fifth of its previous mark while Industrials tapered by 8 percent. Services dipped 43 percent in volume as most of the blue chips traded thin.
Bank Boubyan is considering a capital increase, to level exceeding 75 percent to 100 percent of the current capital which stands at about KD 116.5 million. Kuwait Energy Company (Kuwait Energy) is planning for the sale of a stake of 25 per cent through IPO in the next year, in preparation for listing in London Stock Exchange mid-2009. Ithmaar Bank has sold 20 million shares, representing 2.47 percent of the authorized and paid up capital of Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait to Global Investment House at BD 0.724 per share. Ithmaar Bank and Global Investment House currently own respectively 24.38 percent and 18.95 percent of the shares of Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait.
The market opened on nervous note and fell sharply in early trading as profit booking dragged some of the middle level scrips which had gained in the past sessions. It hovered below the red half way into the session spiked thereafter as investors picked up select scrips, mostly blue chips. The market sagged and fell again and spurt in buying at close helped push the index way above the opening level.
The inflationary pressures continue to mount in Kuwait as the February consumer index (CPI) jumped 10.1 percent from a year ago driven by escalating housing and food prices, NBK said in its latest report. Kuwait now joins Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE (forecasted) as the other Gulf states with double digit inflation. The rate of increase in inflation over the past six months has been fast paced and is expected to rise over the next months.
Winners
The winners outnumbered the losers. 67 stocks advanced while 60 closed lower. Of the 171 counters active on Sunday, 44 closed unchanged. 10,476 deals worth KD 170 million were transacted - down 9.1 percent in value from the previous session. KSE , the second biggest Gulf bourse, has 194 listed companies. Elsewhere in the region, markets swayed in both directions. Saudi Al Tadawul All Stocks Index posted slight loss in early trading after slipping 0.1 percent to settle at 9768.54 points in the previous session. Banking stocks weighed, led by Samba Financial Group and SABB bank which fell 0.63 percent and 0.82 percent respectively. The largest bourse in the region has dropped over 11 percent since the start of the year.
Dubai Financial Market jumped 40.71 points led by Dubai Islamic Bank and Emaar Properties which soared 4.05 percent and 0.9 percent and respectively. The bourse is down 6.7 percent year-to-date (YTD).
Abu Dhabi Securities shed 17.14 points dragged by Abu Dhabi National Energy Company and Etisalat.
Gainer
Doha Securities, the top gainer in the region during the year, soared 178.74 points on back of Qatar Gas Transport Co (Nakilat) and Qatar Islamic Bank which gained 2.44 percent and 2.07 percent respectively. The index has climbed 27.4 percent during the year. Muscat bourse rose 0.85 percent to end at 11601.71 points helped by Bank Muscat and Raysut Cement.
Top percentage gainer, Arab Real Estate Co, vaulted 10 percent to end at KD 0.275 and National Real Estate Co climbed 8.9 percent to stand next. DAMAC Kuwait dipped 7.5 percent, the steepest decliner of the day, while Al Safwa topped the volume with over 37 million shares changing hands.
Oil meanwhile rebounded to more than $4 a barrel on Friday, in response to fears that fuel price increase in China may actually spur that curtail demand for fuel. US July crude which expires on Friday, rose $ 3.50 a barrel, retreating from high of $136.80. London Brent was up $3.43 at $ 135.43. Oil had tumbled nearly $5 a barrel in the previous session after China raised fuel prices by up to 18 percent. International oil markets do not trade on Saturdays and Sundays.
Contradicting initial reports that move by China, the world's second largest oil consumer, would dent demand, some analysts now are of the view that consumption will rise as the price increase will healthier supply at the pumps which as faced long queues and rationing earlier. Demand from China and India and the Middle East has been cited as the factor behind oil's almost seven fold surge to a record of nearly $140 a barrel. Oil rally was also supported by weaker dollar and tensions in Middle East after reports that Israel had carried out a large military operation seen as a rehearsal of potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
By John Mathews
© Arab Times 2008
