By Santhosh V. Perumal
Business Reporter
Banks and consumer goods stocks on Thursday dragged the Qatar Stock Exchange for the third straight session.
Domestic institutions continued to be net sellers but with lesser vigour as the 20-stock Qatar Index (based on price data) dropped 0.21% to 12,445.34 points with trade volumes also falling.
Large and small cap stocks witnessed more selling pressure in the bourse, which is, however, up 1.3% year-to-date.
Foreign institutions’ net buying weakened in the market, where telecom, banks and real estate stocks together cornered more than 71% of the total trading volume.
Market capitalisation shed 0.21% or more than QR1bn to QR675.34bn with large, small, micro and mid cap equities falling 0.47%, 0.4%, 0.22% and 0.16% respectively.
The Total Return Index fell 0.21% to 18,812.58 points, All Share Index by 0.14% to 3,244.9 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.27% to 4,429.96 points.
Banks and financial services stocks shrank 0.6%, consumer goods (0.27%) and insurance (0.22%); while transport gained 0.41%, industrials (0.29%), telecom (0.15%) and realty (0.14%).
Major shakers included QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank, al khaliji, Qatar National Cement and Vodafone Qatar; even as Industries Qatar, Gulf International Services, United Development Company, Mazaya Qatar and Nakilat were seen bucking the trend.
Non-Qatari individual investors turned net profit takers to the tune of QR2.36mn against net buyers of QR1.4mn the previous day.
Domestic institutions’ net selling fell to QR23.03mn compared to QR40.98mn on February 25.
Foreign institutions’ net buying weakened to QR4.72mn againstQR20.03mn on Wednesday.
Qatari retail investors’ net buying rose to QR20.67mn against QR19.55mn the previous day.
Total trade volume fell 14% to 9.65mn shares, while value rose 4% to QR454.27mn and transactions by 1% to 5,631.
The insurance sector’s trade volume plummeted 68% to 0.1mn stocks, value by 61% to QR5.18mn and deals by 51% to 81.
There was 35% plunge in the real estate’s trade volume to 2.03mn equities, 22% in value to QR53.27mn and 20% in transactions to 957.
The industrials sector’s trade volume tanked 31% to 1.41mn shares, while value gained 21% to QR160.37mn and deals by 12% to 1,789.
The market witnessed 15% shrinkage in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 2.76mn stocks, 10% in value to QR55.54mn and 4% in transactions to 748.
The transport sector’s trade volume was down 7% to 0.26mn equities and value by less than 1% to QR11.34mn but deals were up 4% to 131.
However, the consumer goods sector’s trade volume more than quadrupled to 0.99mn shares, value surged 74% to QR47.08mn and transactions by 58% to 618.
The banks and financial services sector reported 8% expansion in trade volume to 2.1mn stocks while there was 6% fall in value to QR121.48mn and 1% in deals to 1,307.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
