By Santhosh V Perumal

Business Reporter

A day ahead of Standard & Poor’s Dow Jones formally placing Qatar Stock Exchange in the emerging market index, the bourse yesterday witnessed severe profit-booking and erosion in capitalisation.

Domestic institutions’ net selling pressure and their foreign counterparts’ reduced buying interests led the 20-stock Qatar Index (based on price data) to shed 1.49% to 14,136.18 points on substantial contraction in volumes.

The realty, banking and industrials segments witnessed the maximum selling pressure in the market, which is, however, up 36.19% year-to-date.

The Total Return Index shrank 1.49% to 21,083.98 points, the All Share Index by 1.41% to 3,570.58 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 1.32% to 4,779.6 points.

However, local retail investors were seen robustly bullish in the bourse, where trading was largely skewed towards real estate, banking and telecom stocks.

Market capitalisation eroded 1.38%, or more than QR10bn, to QR752.08bn. Large, mid and small cap equities lost 1.59%, 1.55% and 0.92% respectively; while micro caps rose by a marginal 0.01%.

Realty stocks fell 1.81%, followed by banks and financial services (1.72%), industrials (1.47%), telecom (1.38%), insurance (1.34%) and transport (0.06%), while consumer goods rose 0.24%.

More than 76% of the stocks were in the red with major shakers being QNB, Industries Qatar, Ooredoo, Commercial Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Doha Bank, International Islamic, al khaliji, Aamal Company, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Barwa, United Development Company, Mazaya Qatar, Ezdan, Vodafone Qatar and Nakilat.

However, Widam Food, Woqod and Al Khaleej Takaful were seen to buck the overall bearish trend.

Ezdan and Masraf Al Rayan were the most traded in terms of both volume and value respectively.

Domestic institutions’ net profit-booking sunk to QR159.38mn against QR213.31mn last Thursday.

Non-Qatari individual investors’ net selling sunk to QR6.77mn compared to QR20mn the previous trading day.

Foreign institutions’ net buying shrank to QR58.55mn against QR174.45mn last Thursday.

However, Qatari retail investors’ net buying rose to QR107.67mn compared to QR58.86mn the previous trading day.

Total trading volume fell 40% to 16.9mn shares; value by 28% to QR604.86mn and transactions by 31% to 5,167.

The real-estate sector’s trade volume plummeted 49% to 9.67mn equities, value by 49% to QR206.1mn and deals by 52% to 1,296.

The banks and financial services sector reported a 46% plunge in trade volume to 3.03mn stocks, 33% in value to QR214.12mn and 29% in transactions to 1,549.

The transport sector’s trade volume tanked 41% to 0.27mn shares, value by 28% to QR10.6mn and deals by 18% to 151.

The consumer goods sector saw its trade volume shrink 38% to 0.5mn equities; while value rose 10% to QR38.56mn. Transactions were down 6% to 423.

The insurance sector’s trading volume declined 11% to 0.24mn stocks, value by 30% to QR13.67mn and deals by 38 to 150.

However, the market witnessed a 92% surge in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 2.09mn shares, 38% in value to QR51.64mn and 23% in transactions to 449.

The industrials sector’s trading volume expanded 5% to 1.09mn equities but value fell 31% to QR70.17mn and deals by 16% to 1,149.

In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.

 

Most Gulf markets pull back

Stock markets in the UAE and Qatar pulled back yesterday after posting strong gains on one-off fund inflows in the previous session, while Saudi Arabia’s property stocks fell after the government began looking into a tax on unused land.

Dubai’s main index slipped 0.2% as lenders Emirates NBD and Dubai Islamic Bank fell 0.5 and 0.6% respectively.

The bourse gained 2.3% last Thursday as foreign funds bought into local stocks en masse ahead of changes in the composition of the FTSE All-World index, which will take effect today.

Meanwhile another index addition, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, declined, having earlier gained 6.8% on the back of the FTSE announcement. The stock dropped 3.3% while Abu Dhabi’s benchmark fell 1.1%.

Saudi Arabia’s main index fell 0.5% and property developers Jabal Omar and Dar Al Arkan were the main drags, sliding 1.5 and 2.8% respectively.

Egypt’s bourse slipped 0.1% after hitting a six-year closing high of 9,729 points in the previous session.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, Kuwait’s index edged up 0.2% to 7,612 points; Oman’s measure inched down 0.1% to 7,500 points, while Bahrain’s index added 0.2% to 1,469 points.