Qatar Stock Exchange continued to remain under bearish spell for the third straight session, amid heightened trading, mainly dragged by insurance, industrials and realty stocks.

Lower buying interests of local retail investors and institutions as well as higher net selling by Gulf individuals led the 20-stock shrink 0.14% to 9,538.77 points amidst more than three-fold jump in trading turnover and volumes.

The sustained bearish run comes amidst oil prices staying below $50 a barrel, awaiting cues from the meeting of Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in June and key Chinese data.

Islamic stocks were seen losing its sheen faster than the conventional ones in the market, which is down 8.54% year-to-date.

However, Gulf institutions’ net buying strengthened and there was marginal decline in net selling by their foreign counterparts in the bourse, where banking, industrials and real estate stocks together constituted about 66% of the total trading volume.

Market capitalisation was down 0.1% or QR54mn to QR517.35bn.

The Total Return Index shed 0.14% to 15,433.1 points, All Share Index by 0.1% to 2,673.73 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.44% to 3,736.47 points.

Insurance stocks fell 1.58%, industrials (1.03%) and realty (0.55%); while transport gained 1.25%, banks and financial services (0.58%), telecom (0.23%) and consumer goods (0.19%).

Major losers included Industries Qatar, Vodafone Qatar, Doha Bank, Qatar National Cement, Qatari Investors Group, Mannai Corporation, Aamal Company, Qatar Insurance, United Development Company, Mazaya Qatar, Ezdan and Alijarah Holding.

However, Qatar Islamic Bank, Nakilat, Gulf International Services, Barwa, Ooredoo and Ahli Bank were seen bucking the trend.

Local retail investors’ net buying weakened perceptibly to QR6.13mn against QR19.43mn on Monday.

Domestic institutions’ net buying also declined to QR6.68mn compared to QR13.83mn the previous day.

The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) individual investors’ net selling rose to QR14.3mn against QR6.26mn on May 30.

However, the GCC institutions turned net buyers to the tune of QR23.69mn compared with net buyers of QR1.41mn on Monday.

Non-Qatari individual investors were also net buyers to the extent of QR4.4mn against net sellers of QR0.77mn the previous day.

Non-Qatari institutions’ net profit booking fell to QR26.53mn compared to QR27.66mn on May 30.

Total trade volume tripled to 10.77mn shares and value more than tripled to QR423.06mn on almost doubled deals to 5,176.

The telecom sector’s trade volume grew almost seven-fold to 1.62mn equities and value almost tripled to QR33.54mn on 31% jump in transactions to 717.

The transport sector’s trade volume rose more than six-fold to 1.25mn stocks and value by more than five-fold to QR31.94mn on more than tripled deals to 440.

The insurance sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 0.5mn shares and value also more than tripled to QR32.19mn on more than quadrupled transactions to 352.

The real estate sector’s trade volume almost tripled to 2mn equities and value also almost tripled to QR41.37mn on more than doubled deals to 838.

The industrials sector’s trade volume almost tripled to 2.4mn stocks and value more than tripled to QR123.38mn on almost doubled transactions to 1,163.

The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 2.7mn shares and value more than tripled to QR145.83mn on more than doubled deals to 1,357.

The market witnessed 61% surge in the consumer goods sector’s trade volume to 0.29mn equities, 59% in value to QR14.83mn and 55% in transactions to 309.

In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.

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