By Santhosh V. Perumal
Business Reporter
The Qatar Stock Exchange gained for the second consecutive day on Monday to inch near the 11,600 mark, mainly on buying support in the industrials, real estate, banks and telecom stocks.
Foreign institutions were seen instrumental in lifting the 20-stock Qatar Index 0.86% to 11,586.83 points as trade volumes also grew.
Net selling by local retail investors considerably weakened in the market, which is, however, down 5.69% year-to-date.
The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks was seen gaining faster than the other indices in the bourse, where real estate, banking and industrials stocks accounted for more than 76% of the total trading volume.
Market capitalisation rose 1.06% or about QR7bn to QR627.23bn with large, small, micro and mid cap stocks gaining 1.18%, 0.82%, 0.54% and 0.23% respectively.
The Total Return Index gained 1.29% to 18,005.03 points, All Share Index by 1.28% to 3,105.12 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 1.43% to 4,248.73 points.
Industrials stocks appreciated 1.8%, realty (1.63%), banks and financial services (1.19%), telecom (1.155), insurance (0.72%), consumer goods (0.59%) and transport (0.17%).
About 66% of the stocks extended gains with major movers being QNB, Industries Qatar, Aamal Company, Gulf International Services, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Ezdan, Mazaya Qatar, Vodafone Qatar and Qatar Islamic Bank; even as Ooredoo, Commercial Bank, Barwa and Nakilat bucked the trend.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying strengthened to QR51.98mn against QR0.79mn the previous day.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) individual investors’ net buying fell to QR4.97mn compared to QR17.79mn on March 29.
Local retail investors’ net buying weakened to QR15.51mn against QR39.9 the previous day.
Domestic institutions turned net profit takers to the extent of QR29.56mn compared with net buyers of 0.44mn on Sunday.
The GCC institutions also turned net sellers to the tune of QR5.01mn against net buyers of QR13.44mn on March 29.
Non-Qatari individual investors were net sellers to the extent of QR6.87mn compared with net buyers of QR7.4mn the previous day.
Total trade volume was up 4% to 7.74mn shares, value by 24% to QR394.72mn and transactions by 57% to 5,604.
The real estate sector saw its trade volume surge 89% to 2.51mn stocks and value almost quadrupled to QR80.46mn on more than doubled deals to 1,016.
The market witnessed 84% expansion in the industrials sector’s trade volume to 1.47mn equities more than doubling value to QR105.05mn on 61% jump in transactions to 1,234.
The telecom sector’s trade volume soared 39% to 1.22mn shares and value more than doubled to QR39.37mn on almost six-fold expansion in deals to 1,421.
The consumer goods sector witnessed 18% rise in trade volume to 0.39mn stocks but value fell less than 1% to QR35.98mn. Deals rose 4% to 555.
However, the insurance sector’s trade volume plummeted 80% to 0.01mn equities, value by 88% to QR0.39mn and transactions by 48% to 22.
The banks and financial services sector reported 49% plunge in trade volume to 1.93mn shares, value by 33% to QR120.06mn and deals by 20% to 1,130.
The transport sector saw its trade volume decline 13% to 0.21mn stocks, even as value rose 40% to QR13.41mn and transactions more than doubled to 226.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
