By Santhosh V Perumal
Business Reporter
Profit-booking pressure – especially in telecom, real estate, industrials and transport stocks – on Monday led the Qatar Stock Exchange to lose 44 points to settle below the 12,400 mark.
Local retail investors turned bearish as the 20-stock Qatar Index settled 0.35% lower at 12,399.49 points amid increase in trade volumes.
The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks was seen melting faster than the other indices in the bourse, which, however, reported 0.93% gains year-to-date.
However, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) retail and institutional investors as well as foreign institutions were intense in buying in the market, where trading was largely skewed towards realty and banking sectors, whose stocks together accounted for more than 68% of the overall volume.
Market capitalisation fell 0.33%, or more than QR2bn, to QR658.52bn with small, micro and mid cap equities losing 0.55%, 0.55% and 0.49% respectively, while large caps were up 0.02%.
The Total Return Index shed 0.35% to 19,269.45 points, the All Share Index by 0.34% to 3,301.98 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.42% to 4,714.87 points.
Telecom stocks sunk 1.71%, followed by realty (1.15%), industrials (0.56%), transport (0.45%), consumer goods (0.29%) and insurance (0.26%); whereas banks and financial services rose 0.33%.
Major losers included Aamal Company, United Development Company, Mazaya Qatar, Ooredoo, Vodafone Qatar, Gulf International Services, QIIB, Ezdan, Barwa, Nakilat and Doha Insurance.
However, Qatar Islamic Bank, Islamic Holding Group, Dlala, Qatari German Company for Medical Devices and Islamic Holding Group bucked the trend.
Local retail investors turned net sellers to the tune of QR53.77mn against net buyers of QR18.28mn on Sunday.
However, non-Qatari individual investors turned net buyers to the extent of QR2.22mn compared with net sellers of QR7.82mn on May 24.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying strengthened to QR71.88mn against QR22.25mn the previous day.
GCC individual investors turned net buyers to the tune of QR5.12mn compared with net sellers of QR3.65mn on Sunday.
Domestic institutions’ net profit-booking decreased to QR32.51mn against QR46.1mn on May 24.
The GCC institutions’ net buying rose to QR7.1mn compared to QR0.4mn the previous day.
Total trade volume was up 2% to 13.8mn shares and value by 10% to QR483.07mn amid a 1% fall in deals to 5,456.
The insurance sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 0.52mn equities and value also more than tripled to QR41.16mn on a 31% expansion in transactions to 166.
There was a 67% surge in the industrials sector’s trade volume to 1.27mn stocks, 52% in value to QR61.91mn and 20% in deals to 1,118.
The transport sector’s trade volume soared 18% to 0.33mn shares, value by 2% to QR11.41mn and transactions by 11% to 176.
The market witnessed a 17% expansion in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 0.55mn equities, 11% in value to QR10.84mn and 33% in deals to 319.
The real estate sector’s trade volume gained 2% to 5.81mn stocks, while value fell 9% to QR131.22mn and transactions by 4% to 1,420.
The consumer goods sector saw a 1% rise in trade volume to 1.72mn shares; even as there was a 22% decline in value to QR43.64mn and 22% in deals to 648.
However, the banks and financial services sector reported a 20% shrinkage in trade volume to 3.59mn equities; while value rose 12% to QR182.89mn. Transactions were down 9% to 1,609.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
