By Santhosh V. Perumal
Business Reporter
An across-the-board buying — particularly in the realty, consumer goods and transport stocks — led the Qatar Stock Exchange gain another huge 114 points to inch near the 12,000 mark.
The bullish outlook of foreign institutions and local retail investors helped the 20-stock Qatar Index gain about 1% to 11,947.45 points on enhanced trade volumes.
Small and mid cap stocks witnessed the maximum buying interests in the bourse, which is, however, down 2.75% year-to-date.
Domestic institutions, however, resorted to heavy profit booking in the market, where real estate, banking and industrials stocks accounted for about 80% of the total trading volume.
Market capitalisation expanded 0.7% or more than QR4bn to QR642.41bn with small, mid, micro and large cap stocks gaining 1.45%, 1.14%, 0.29% and 0.22% respectively.
The Total Return Index surged 0.96% to 18,565.41 points, All Share Index by 0.89% to 3,189.68 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 1.51% to 4,435.42 points.
Realty stocks soared 3.02%, consumer goods (1.28%), transport (1.1%), industrials (0.75%), insurance (0.53%), banks and financial services (0.21%) and telecom (0.18%).
More than 80% of the stocks extended gains with major movers being Industries Qatar, Barwa, Ezdan, Mazaya Qatar, Aamal Company, Qatar Islamic Bank, Doha Bank, al khaliji, Masraf Al Rayan, Al Meera, Al Khaleej Takaful and Milaha; even as QNB and Gulf International Services bucked the trend.
Non-Qatari institutions turned net buyers to the tune of QR21.33mn against net sellers of QR23.69mn the previous day.
Local retail investors’ net buying strengthened to QR6.03mn compared to QR0.26mn on Tuesday.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) institutions turned net buyers to the extent of QR5.08mn against net sellers of QR0.04mn on April 7.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net buying fell to QR4.38mn compared to QR6.65mn the previous day.
The GCC individual investors’ net buying weakened to QR1.61mn against QR5.63mn on Tuesday.
However, domestic institutions turned net profit takers to the tune of QR38.46mn compared with net buyers of QR11.19mn on April 7.
Total trade volume rose 16% to 9.56mn shares but value less than 1% to QR365.23mn; while transactions were up 10% to 4,888.
The transport sector’s trade volume shot up 54% to 0.37mn equities, while value fell 15% to QR15.11mn. Deals soared 75% to 206.
The real estate sector saw its trade volume surge 31% to 4.79mn stocks, value by 55% to QR119.22mn and transactions by 49% to 1,566.
The banks and financial services sector reported 16% rise in trade volume to 1.64mn shares but on 11% fall in value to QR79.21mn; whereas deals were up 13% to 1,060.
There was 10% expansion in the industrials sector’s trade volume to 1.19mn equities but on 33% slippage in value to QR78.16mn and 8% in transactions to 1,179.
However, the market witnessed 15% plunge in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 0.83mn stocks, 35% in value to QR16.83mn and 48% in deals to 276.
The consumer goods sector’s trade volume declined 9% to 0.6mn shares; even as value soared 53% to QR49.97mn and transactions by 34% to 513.
The insurance sector’s trade volume was down 6% to 0.15mn equities, value by 9% to QR6.74mn and deals by 33% to 88.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
