The Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) closed the week Wednesday slightly up despite seasonally weak trading and a report that showed a 10 percent drop in second-quarter profits of 79 listed companies.
The KSE index closed at 1,351.3 points, up 1.4 points on the week, but down 6.3 percent on the end of 1999 and a massive 52.4 percent on its all-time high in November 1997.
A report released Wednesday by the Securities House, a Kuwait-based investment company, said profits of 79 of the bourse's listed 87 firms in the first half of the year fell 10 percent to $869.8 million from $968.2 million in the first six months of 1999.
Profits in the second quarter were down six percent on the first, the report added. After almost a complete lull in the first four days of the week, trading picked up dramatically on Wednesday with shares worth some 28.2 million dollars changing hands.
Average daily trading has been hovering around $4.9 million for the last several weeks. Some 87 companies with market capitalization of about $20 billion are listed on the KSE, the second largest bourse in the Arab world after the NCFEI in Saudi Arabia.
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
