Kuwait’s Stock Exchange: gambling den no more? | beyondbrics – FT.com

Kuwait’s stock market may be one of the oldest and largest in the Arab world, but has long been synonymous with rampant market abuses such as insider trading and pump-and-dump trading by powerful merchant investors. That may be about to change.

Spurred on by the financial crisis, which caused the exchange to shed almost two thirds of its market capitalisation, Kuwait last year introduced a new regulatory framework, and this year established a dedicated Capital Markets Authority to enforce the new rulebook.

Many Kuwaiti investors blame the absence of a dedicated regulator and supine stock exchange for crashes that have wiped out savings several times since the bourse was established in 1962 – most notably the “Soukh al-Manakh” crash of 1982.