Kuwait stock market continues upward march

The Kuwait stock market retained its upward trend last week with its main market indices closing one positive note for the second week in a row, a specialized economic report showed Saturday. The report, by Bayan Investment Company, said the price index closed at 6, 977 points, up 29.96 percent compared with the last week, its highest record since January 2011. The weighted index has posted 0.51 percent gains to close at 442.6 points. In addition KSX-15 index jumped up 3.67 percent to settle at 1,053 points, the highest since its launch in May 2013. Bayan attributed the active performance of the market to the relatively positive sentiments which dominated the market for the second consecutive week over the expected good financial results of the listed companies for the first quarter of 2013. It added that despite some sale and profit collection operations which caused some instability, the market managed to make gains for all its indices, supported by the purchasing power executed on many listed stocks, particularly the small-cap ones. Meanwhile Oula Financial Brokerage Company's weekly report pointed out that the purchase focused on the small and medium-cap chips amid selective speculations on certain large-cap chips. It also expected the small and medium-cap equities would benefit in the coming period from the increase of the government spending and the growth of the loans of operating companies.