(MENAFN- Arab Times) Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended March in the red zone. The Price Index closed at 5,820.56 points, down by 6.93 percent compared to the closings of the month before, the Weighted Index decreased by 8.01 percent after closing at 385.34 points, whereas the KSX-15 Index closed at 919.16 points decreasing by 9.44 percent. Furthermore, last month's average turnover increased by 24.85 percent, compared to the preceding month, reaching KD 13.64 million, whereas trading volume average was 139.70 million shares, recording increase of 25.40 percent.
The three stock market indicators ended the month's trading in the red zone, under the effect of the random selling operations which were strongly present during most of the daily sessions of the month, whereas it included many stocks of different sectors, especially the leading stocks which received the biggest part of the selling operations witnessed by the market during August, and pushed the three market indicators to lose many points, especially the Price Index that exceeded level 6,000 point down for the first time since Jan 2013. Also, the market was affected by the quick speculation operations that were present and also affected the trading behavior during the month.
In addition, the purchasing operations were not absent from affecting the market performance during the month of August, as some daily sessions witnessed random purchasing operations executed on some operational stocks, which limited the market losses somehow.
On the other hand, the month of August witnessed the end of the legal disclosure period given for the listed companies to disclose its first half financial results, and the number of the disclosed companies reached 180 company by the end of the month out of 192 listed companies in the official market, realizing about KD 973 million net profit, with an increase of 7.88 percent from its last year's results for the same period, as it reached then KD 902 million.
Moreover, the market cap reached by the end of August KD 25.78 billion, declining by 7.58 percent compared to its level in July, where it reached then KD 27.90 billion; however on the annual level, the market cap for the listed companies in KSE recorded 7.86 percent loss from its value at end of 2014, where it was KD 27.98 billion.
All of KSE's sectors ended last month in the red zone except for one sector. The Financial Services sector headed the losers list as its index declined by 11.16 percent to end the month's activity at 657.17 points. The Telecommunications sector was second on the losers' list, which index declined by 10.42 percent, closing at 551.03 points, followed by the Basic Materials sector, as its index closed at 937.61 points at a loss of 10.06 percent. The Health Care sector was the least declining as its index closed at 1,087.15 points with a 0.77 percent decrease.
On the other hand, the Consumer Services sector was last week only gainer, which index grew by 2.11 percent, closing at 1,095.19 points.
The Real Estate sector dominated total trade volume during last month with 1.14 billion shares changing hands, representing 37.04 percent of the total Market trading volume. The Financial Services sector was second in terms of trading volume as the sector's traded shares were 31.25 percent of last month's total trading volume, with a total of 960.45 million shares.
On the other hand, the Banks sector's stocks where the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of KD 80.33 million or 26.77 percent of last month's total market trading value. The Real Estate sector took the second place as the sector's last month turnover of KD 57.91 million represented 19.30 percent of the total market trading value.
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