By Santhosh V. Perumal
Business Reporter
Domestic institutions hurriedly squared off their position, leading the Qatar Stock Exchange to lose a sizeable 266 points to below 13,500 levels and more than QR11bn in capitalisation for the third straight session yesterday.
An across the board selling – particularly in insurance, telecom and industrials – dragged the 20-stock Qatar Index (based on price data) 1.94% to 13,423.83 points amid robust volumes.
Small and mid cap equities largely came under selling pressure in the bourse, which is, however, up 29.33% year-to-date.
Overall, trading was skewed towards banks and industrials, which together accounted for about 76% of total volume.
The Total Return Index fell 1.94% to 20,021.52 points, All Share Index by 1.7% to 3,414.32 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 1.73% to 4,556.14 points.
Market capitalisation shrank 1.5% to QR731.29bn with small, mid and large caps melting 3.05%, 2.63% and 1.1% respectively; even as micro caps rose 0.16%.
Insurance stocks plummeted 4.18%, telecom (3.51%), industrials (2.84%), transport (1.4%), realty (1.33%), banks and financial services (0.86%) and consumer goods (0.08%).
More than 72% of the stocks were in the red with major losers being Industries Qatar, Ooredoo, Vodafone Qatar, Doha Bank, Commercial Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Masraf Al Rayan, al khaliji, Alijarah Holding, Gulf International Services, Barwa, Ezdan, Nakilat, Milaha and Qatar Insurance.
However, QNB and Islamic Holding Group were seen bucking the trend.
Domestic institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR321.63mn against net buyers of QR22.72mn the previous day.
Qatari retail investors’ net selling fell to QR30.1mn compared to QR53.22mn on Monday.
However, foreign institutions’ net buying surged to QR333.6mn against QR3.45mn on November 24.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net buying weakened to QR18.13mn compared to QR21.05mn the previous day.
Total trade volume almost tripled to 31.11mn shares and values more than quadrupled to QR3.63bn on 47% rise in transactions to 11,657.
The industrials sector’s trade volume grew almost five-fold to 10.44mn equities and value by more than five-fold to QR1.58bn on 57% jump in deals to 4,086.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume almost quadrupled to 13.08mn stocks and value by about five-fold to QR1.75bn on 60% expansion in transactions to 4,477.
The transport sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 0.72mn shares, value by 97% to QR33.49mn and deals by 97% to 398.
The telecom sector saw its trade volume grow 65% to 2.93mn equities and value more than doubled to QR100.76mn. Transactions rose 53% to 776.
There was 33% surge in the insurance sector’s trade volume to 0.24mn stocks and 37% in value to QR20.79mn but on 2% fall in deals to 141.
The real estate sector’s trade volume gained 28% to 3.33mn shares, value by 18% to QR102.79mn and transactions by 10% to 1,449.
However, the consumer goods sector’s trade volume was down 3% to 0.37mn equities, while value rose 8% to QR36.37mn. Deals were down 9% to 330.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
