By Santhosh V Perumal/Business Reporter

Qatar’s bourse was back on a positive trajectory yesterday to inch near the 7,000 mark on local institutions’ buying support.

Led by Doha Bank and Industries Qatar (IQ), the 20-stock benchmark gained 0.36% to close at 6,957.60 points, a day after HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani said the country’s economy will grow 9% this fiscal and 16% in 2010.

The market is up 0.89% year-to-date.

On a sector-wise performance, the indices of industry, services and lenders rose 0.52%, 0.40% and 0.30% respectively, while that of insurance pared 0.58%.

Of the 44 stocks, 16 each gained and declined, while 10 were unchanged and two were not traded.

Market capitalisation rose 0.25% to QR322.65bn with mid, large, micro and small cap equities gaining 1.10%, 0.92%, 0.56% and 0.45% respectively.

A total of 12.89mn shares worth QR340.60mn changed hands across 6,539 transactions. Volumes, value and deals were up 67%, 42% and 33% respectively from the previous day.

The services segment saw its volume more than double to 9.23mn shares; value also more than doubled to QR204.52mn on 70% jump in transactions to 4,223.

The insurance sector saw its volume gain 7% to 0.15mn, value by 72% to QR8.60mn and deals by 38% to 121.

Lenders trading volume was however down 5% to 2.83mn shares, value by 8% to QR94mn and transactions by 12% to 1,519.

Industrial trading volume fell 3% to 0.68mn stocks and value by 24% to QR33.49mn but deals were up 11% to 676.

Opening strong at 6,935.39 against the previous day’s close of 6,932.62 points, the market then fell for the next 15 minutes to reach a low of 6,908.87 points mainly on lenders, industry and services stocks.

However, substantial gains in the banks and services equities drove the index up for the next 45 minutes but the bullish momentum could not be sustained and the index fell for the rest of the session. But, overall it settled 25 points higher.

Local institutions turned bullish as they were net buyers (in terms of value) to the tune of 7.94% compared with net sellers of 1.22% on Tuesday.

A lower 21.31% of them were into buying against 25.64% in the previous day and a much lower 13.37% were into selling compared with 26.86%.

Foreign institutions continued to be profit-takers but with lesser intensity as their net selling fell to 4.05% from 6.14% on Tuesday.

A lower 12.66% of them bought equities compared with 17.19% in the previous trading day and a lower 16.71% sold against 23.33%.

Qatari retail investors turned profit-takers as they were net sellers to the extent of 2.98% compared with net buyers of 2.14% on Tuesday.

A higher 45.96% of them purchased stocks compared with 37.74% in the previous day and a much higher 48.94% offloaded against 35.60%.

Non-Qatari retail investors were also bearish that they were net sellers to the tune of 0.90% compared with net buyers of 5.22% on Tuesday.

A higher 20.08% of them picked up equities against 19.43% in the previous day and a higher 20.98% offloaded compared with 14.21%.

Actively traded stocks (in terms of volume) were Mawashi (5.11mn shares), Nakilat (1.79mn), Masraf Al Rayan (1.35mn), Vodafone Qatar (852,400) and Commercialbank (453,271).