By Santhosh V. Perumal
Business Reporter
The Qatar Stock Exchange continued to be under bearish spell for the second day on Thursday, dragged by local and non-Qatari retail investors as well as Gulf and non-Qatari institutions.
Selling of insurance, telecom, real estate and consumer goods equities dragged the 20-stock Qatar Index 0.81% to 11,410.76 points amid doubling of trade volumes.
Small and mid cap stocks bore the maximum brunt in the market, which is down 7.12% year-to-date.
The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks was seen melting faster than the other indices in the bourse, where realty, banking and telecom stocks accounted for more than 73% of the total trading volume.
Market capitalisation eroded 0.81% or more than QR5bn to QR617.47bn with small, mid, large and micro cap stocks losing 0.93%, 0.86%, 0.6% and 0.59% respectively.
The Total Return Index fell 0.53% to 17,654.96 points, All Share Index by 0.71% to 3,047.89 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.76% to 4,168.53 points.
Insurance stocks plunged 2.18%, telecom (1.33%), real estate (1.31%), consumer goods (1.07%), banks and financial services (0.68%) and industrials (0.1%); whereas transport rose 0.33%.
More than 73% of the stocks were in the red with major losers being QNB, Commercial Bank, Dlala, Salam International Investment, Aamal Company, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Barwa, Ezdan, United Development Company, Vodafone Qatar, Ooredoo and Nakilat; even as Industries Qatar and Qatar Islamic Bank bucked the trend.
Local and non-Qatari retail investors were net sellers to the tune of QR57.12mn and QR18.17mn and so were Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and non-Qatari institutions to the extent of QR30.5mn and QR17.02mn respectively.
Domestic institutions were net buyers to the tune of QR93.68mn and so were GCC individual investors to the extent of QR29.14mn.
Total trade volume doubled to 12.06mn shares and value also doubled to QR545.6mn on 91% jump in transactions to 7,649.
The insurance sector’s trade volume grew 17-fold to 0.17mn stocks and value by more than 15-fold to QR11.74mn on almost six-fold expansion in deals to 93.
The real estate sector saw its trade volume almost triple to 3.84mn equities and value surged 72% to QR93.42mn on almost tripled transactions to 1,508.
The market witnessed almost tripling of the industrials sector’s trade volume to 1.95mn shares, value soared 90% to QR133.56mn and deals by 21% to 1,621.
The consumer goods sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 1.95mn stocks and value also more than doubled to QR29.27mn on more than doubled transactions to 613.
The banks and financial services sector reported 65% surge in trade volume to 3mn equities to see more than doubling of value to QR201.4mn on 58% rise in deals to 1,933.
The telecom sector’s trade volume expanded 38% to 2.02mn shares but value more than doubled to QR56.37mn and transactions more than quadrupled to 1,682.
The transport sector saw its trade volume soar 36% to 0.45mn stocks and value more than doubled to QR19.85mn, while deals were down 6% to 199.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
