Sharp drop in oil price eats into stocks

The stock market was hammered hard today by the steep slide in the price of oil, leaving the way wide open for many speculators to take advantage of that and of the ensuing shakiness in the confidence of small investors as to the future, said two market watchers on Tuesday.
Naif Al-Enezi and Muhammad Al-Tarrah both agreed, in separate remarks to KUNA, that the huge fall in the price of numerous major stocks cast a negative shadow on the general outlook for most stocks, especially the small ones, traded today.
The lackluster performance of the Kuwaiti stock market today was paralleled by the same in the markets of the Gulf nations, leading some investors in those countries to abandon the stock market for the real estate market which they felt was a more secure refuge for their funds, said the two market watchers.
Al-Enezi, dissatisfied with the way the market was going today especially the indifference shown by the market's playmakers, noted that the stock market officials should take a closer look at the market's indecisive performance in view of the current drop in the price of oil.
What really was absent in today's trading, Al-Tarrah said, was the lack of basic incentives to spur on more activity than what actually occurred, putting the blame on investment fund managers and portfolio managers who opted to stay on the sidelines rather fueling more trading.
Nonetheless, cheap shares worth less than KD 0.100 witnessed some buying activity in an environment which supported selling off shares of all kinds and values, leading all indices to remain in the red zone from the start to the finish of today's trading activity.
In fact the market closed down 99.2 points to reach the level of 6397.8 points, allowing the market capitalization to come to about KD 26 million achieved through 5952 cash transactions. Up to 234.4 million shares exchanged hands today.