RIYADH, 2 June — Increased cash flows helped Kuwaiti shares soar a further 3.2 percent in the week ending Friday to lead Arab stock markets in a mixed week, Bakheet Financial Advisers (BFA) said yesterday.
Kuwait’s Stock Exchange Index closed on 2,157.60 points, its highest level since October 1998, “pushed by high liquidity where share trading is the most popular investment tool in the absence” of other lucrative opportunities, BFA said.
The market is up 26.2 percent on the year’s start and is the best performer among Arab stock markets.
Worst performer of the week was the Palestinian Al-Quds Index, which shed 3.9 percent to close on 176.87 points due to “profit-taking sales after recording 11.7 percent gains in the past two weeks,” the Riyadh-based analysts said.
Jordan’s Amman Stock Exchange, where local investors focused on industrial blue chips, gained one percent to finish the week on 173.78 points.
The United Arab Emirates’ NBAD Index closed on 3,088.26 points, a rise of 0.9 percent, and Egypt’s Hermes Financial Index increased 0.6 percent to end the week on 5,353.16 points.
Morocco’s CFG Index and Bahrain’s BSE Index had no change in the week to close on 7,898.41 points and 1,811.69 points respectively.
Lebanon’s BLOM Index dropped slightly by 0.1 percent to finish on 427.96 points, Qatar’s CBQ Index edged 0.5 percent down to 354.03 points and Oman’s MSM Index lost 0.6 percent to end the week on 181.98 points. Tunisia’s TUNINDEX was down 1.3 percent, finishing the week on 1,197.40 points.
The Saudi Tadawul All-Shares Index (TASI) shed one percent to close on 2,890.30 points on profit-taking sales after setting an all-time high in the previous week.
Meanwhile, Saudi investors have been cautioned not to put too much faith in the bull run being witnessed on the Saudi stock market recently as it “will not sustain itself and correction is inevitable in the immediate future.”
This is the assessment of the Riyadh-based Consulting Center for Finance and Investment (CCFI). In its latest issue, CCFI’s “Saudi Economic Report” points out that the current surge in the Saudi share values is artificial and bucks the general downward trend on the global stock exchanges. “The million riyal question is whether the current bull run sustain itself? Though the events mentioned in the beginning, including the higher oil price, might be the cause for such share prices spiral, the real cause... is the excess liquidity in the market due to the repatriation of money after the Sept. 11 incident,” the report points out.
