Stocks tumble, except for blue chips in Kuwait

The rush among some traders and investors to buy blue chip stocks put undue pressure on trading activities on Thursday at the Kuwait Stock Exchange, as many of these traders stayed away from most other stocks, opined two market watchers to KUNA. There was a noticeable sell off of the blue chips today which impelled many to horde them pending better market conditions next week, they hoped, said stock market analyst Adnan Al-Dulaimi, noting that the lackluster performance in the market this week was due in some measure to the pallor cast on it by a number of strained political factors. He hoped that more firms coming out with their financial statements for the first quarter performance would help the market turn this untoward corner next week. Market watcher Muhammad Al-Tarrah agreed with Al-Dulaimi that many investors were holding back today because they were waiting for firms to publish the result of their first quarter statements before they plunged in share-buying. Nevertheless he said there was a brisk buying of bank shares, especially those banks that had already published their first quarter results, giving the traders the heads-up on the possible trajectory of the stocks of these banks. The market today closed on 7450 points, down by 64 points. Up to 210 million shares were up for grabs