The Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) closed the week of Wednesday December 5 up 1.27 percent, a gain investors attributed to increased liquidity in the market and the eyeing of blue chip shares before year's end. The KSE index closed at 1677.8 points, up 21.1 points on the week and 24.4 percent on the year.
"We're near the end of the year so most investors are looking to invest in the market and go for blue chip shares," said Fawaz Al-Ahmad of the Kuwait Investment Company's local and Gulf investment department.
"So many funds were established in the last three or four months, and most have 20 to 25 percent of their capital in cash," he told AFP. "New funds or old funds with cash intend to invest more in the market."
The average value of daily trading on the bourse was $32.2 million, double last year's 16 million. It was down from an average of $42 million in the first half of 2001 and well below the 1997 average of $134 million.
The index is still down 5.3 percent since the September 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington and 40.8 percent on its all-time high of November 1997. The KSE is the second largest stock exchange in the Arab world in terms of capitalization after Saudi Arabia's NCFEI index. — (AFP, Kuwait City)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
