Blue chips drive rally in Kuwait stock market

Kuwait Stock Exchange witnessed strong activity in lastweek's trading supported by active trading on leading and operational stocks, aspecialized economic report showed Saturday.The report, by Oula Financial Brokerage Company, said that the price index andweighted index closed up by 1.95 percent and 1 percent respectively whereas, theKSX-15 index closed down by 0.79 percent.The report attributed that to the gains made by the price and weighted indices to theactive purchasing and profit collection operations which focused on the leading andoperational stocks.The stock market initiated last week''''s trading with big losses driven by the profitcollection operations performed on the small-cap stocks, however, it bounced backlater supported by the purchasing power that targeted many blue-chip stocks, thereport noted. The data also showed that the market capitalization has increased in the first quarter of 2014 by KD 7.1 billion to reach 32.51 billion.The average daily turnover retreated to KD 32.3 million in the first quarter of 2014vis-? -vis KD 40.3 million for the corresponding period of 2013.