Kuwait stock exchange severely plummeted this week

Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) indicators declined steeply in first week of March as selling operations were performed on both large-cap and small-cap, and witnessed the biggest decline in almost six months period, a report by Bayan Investment Co. said on Saturday. The market plunged due to the influence of adverse regional and global political events, where global market has suffered losses in the light of the investor's fears on the repercussions of the Russian crisis Ukrainian, the report noted. The withdrawal of a number of GCC ambassadors from Qatar has impacted on the performance of GCC stock markets in general, it said. The delay of many listed companies to announce its 2013 financial results had an effect on the stock market activity during the last week, due to the traders' fear of having some companies banned from trading, if the legal disclosure period has passed, as it will end by the end of the current month, and this in turn increased the watch and cautious state, and thus influenced the market trading activity, the report added. The green zone was not absent from the trading scene last week, with a limited effect however, as the stock market was able to realize gain after the traders' performed random purchasing operations, taking the chance of the price decline, which lightened the market losses. For the annual performance, the price index ended last week recording 0.56 percent annual loss compared to its closing in 2013, while the weighted index increased by 0.86 percent, and the KSX-15 recorded 1.32 percent growth. All of KSE's sectors ended last week in the red zone except for one sector. The Consumer Services sector headed the losers list as its index declined by 4. 16 percent to end the week's activity at 1,092.27 points. The Banks sector was second on the losers' list, which index declined by 3.19 percent, closing at 1, 040.19 points, followed by the Real Estate sector, as its index closed at 1, 366.44 points at a loss of 3.05 percent, it said. The Financial Services sector dominated total trade volume during last week with 453.09 million shares changing hands, representing 38.36 percent of the total market trading volume. The Real Estate sector was second in terms of trading volume as the sector's traded shares were 33.93 percent of last week's total trading volume, with a total of 400.80 million shares. On the other hand, the Banks sector's stocks were the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of K.D 41.74 million or 32.56 percent of last week's total market trading value. The Financial Services sector took the second place as the sector's last week turnover was K.D 34.36 million represented 26.80 percent of the total market trading value, the report concluded.