By Santhosh V Perumal

Business Reporter

Buying interests in the banking stocks yesterday halted the six consecutive days of bearish spell on the Qatar Stock Exchange.

Local retail investors turned bullish to lift the 20-stock Qatar Index (based on price data) by a marginal 0.07% to 13,844.08 points as volumes almost doubled.

Large and small cap equities witnessed feeble buying interests in the market, which is up 33.38% year-to-date.

The index that tracks Shariah-principled stock was seen gaining faster than the other indices in the bourse, where trading volume was largely skewed towards real estate and banking stocks.

The Total Return Index was up 0.07% to 20,648.32 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.2% to 4,686.24 points; while the All Share Index down 0.02% to 3,497.81 points.

Domestic institutions continued to be net buyers but with lesser intensity in the bourse, where capitalisation, however, fell 0.07% or QR50mn to QR737.8bn.

Banks and financial services stocks rose 0.3%; while telecom shrank 0.78%, followed by insurance (0.57%), transport (0.32%), consumer goods (0.16%), industrials (0.12%) and realty (0.12%).

Large and small cap equities rose 0.1% and 0.09%, while micro and mid caps fell 0.46% and 0.02% respectively.

Major movers included Qatar Islamic Bank, Commercial Bank, International Islamic, Ezdan, Barwa and Vodafone Qatar.

However, Industries Qatar, Ooredoo, Doha Bank, Mesaieed Petrochemical Company, United Development Company, Qatar General and Reinsurance, Doha Insurance and Salam International Investment bucked the trend.

Ezdan, Masraf Al Rayan and Doha Bank were among the most active in terms of volume and value respectively.

Qatari retail investors turned net buyers to the tune of QR53.05mn against net sellers of QR3.28mn the previous day.

Domestic institutions’ net buying fell to QR24.65mn compared to QR43.45mn on Sunday.

Non-Qatari individual investors’ net buying rose to QR23.8mn against QR10.19mn the previous day.

However, foreign institutions’ net profit-booking surged to QR101.5mn compared to QR50.34mn on Sunday.

Total trading volume almost doubled to 12.05mn shares and value more than doubled to QR605.56mn on a 72% jump in transactions to 5,507.

The transport sector’s trade volume almost quadrupled to 0.75mn equities and value more than tripled to QR23.35mn on more-than-doubled deals to 276.

The insurance sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 0.25mn stocks and value by more than five-fold to QR17.83mn on more-than-doubled deals to 200.

The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 3.55mn shares and value also more than doubled to QR264.87mn on a 78% surge in transactions to 1,834.

The telecom sector’s trade volume doubled to 0.86mn equities and value more than doubled to QR25.39mn on an 87% growth in transactions to 286.

The real estate sector witnessed an 88% expansion in trade volume to 5.2mn stocks, value more than doubled to QR122mn and deals by 87% to 1,237.

The market witnessed a 53% uptick in the industrials sector’s trade volume to 1.07mn shares, value more than doubled to QR132.1mn and transactions by 36% to 1,352.

However, the consumer goods sector’s trade volume was down 5% to 0.37mn equities but there was a 21% jump in value to QR20.05mn and 69% in deals to 322.

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

 

Egypt stocks rebound; profit-taking shifts to Kuwait

Egypt’s stock market rebounded from a profit-taking bout yesterday after the Cairo government announced ambitious plans to develop the refining and petrochemicals sectors and awarded fresh licences to foreign energy companies.

The Cairo index rose 1.8% after oil minister Sherif Ismail told Reuters on Sunday that Egypt would spend $14.5bn over the next five years to overcome an energy crisis that has led to near-daily power cuts and hit company profits.

He also said the government was considering floating stakes in some state-owned oil companies on the stock exchange.

Shares in steelmaker Ezz Steel rose 2.0% to 18.70 Egyptian pounds after Ci Capital raised its price target for the stock to 23.50 pounds from 21.50 pounds with an “overweight” rating.

Developer SODIC surged its daily limit of 10% ahead of the listing of its rights issue.

Saudi Arabia’s bourse also started recovering after several days of profit-taking and added 0.8%. Banks were the main drivers of the rise as Bank Albilad jumped 5.2% and Banque Saudi Fransi added 2.8%.

Trading volume, however, was relatively low, reflecting the pre-holiday mood.

Bourses in Saudi Arabia and Oman will be closed next week for Eid al-Adha and, although other markets may take shorter breaks - Egypt will close on October 5-8 - some individual investors in them may stay away from the market for a few extra days.

Dubai’s bourse see-sawed in low-volume trading and eventually edged up 0.1% amid a mixed performance by major stocks. Lenders Emirates NBD and Dubai Islamic Bank were the main support, adding 0.7 and 0.5% respectively. Emaar Properties, the emirate’s largest listed developer, fell 0.9% after its malls unit announced the final price of its initial public offer.

Abu Dhabi’s bourse edged up 0.5%. Dana Gas jumped 3.0% after announcing the Egyptian deal.

Profit-taking, in the meantime, appeared to be shifting to previously resilient Kuwait, where the main index fell 0.7%, ending a three-week uptrend.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, Oman’s index added 0.1% to 7,463 points, while Bahrain’s measure gained 0.05% to 1,477 points.

Related Story