Stronger net selling by local retail investors and domestic institutions on Thursday led Qatar Stock Exchange remain in the negative trajectory for the second straight session.

Profit booking was seen intense – especially in the telecom, transport and realty counters – which rather drove the 20-stock Qatar Index down 14 points or 0.13% to 10,438.45 points, largely reflecting the gloomy third quarter performance of some of the key listed companies.

Trade turnover were on the rise amidst lower volumes in the bourse, whose year-to-date gains were contained at 0.09%.

Notwithstanding strong buying support from foreign institutions, the picture remained gloomy in the market, where banking and real estate sectors constituted about 61% of the total volume.

Nevertheless, large and microcap equities were seen lifting the capitalisation of the market, where Islamic stocks declined faster than the conventional ones.

Both non-Qatari individual investors and Gulf institutions, however, turned bullish in the bourse.

Market capitalisation was up 0.04% or QR23mn to QR562.55bn as large and microcap equities rose 0.14% and 0.03%; while mid and small caps fell 0.21% and 0.03% respectively.

The Total Return Index shed 0.13% to 16,888.71 points, All Share Index by 0.03% to 2,879.78 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.3% to 3,879.03 points.

Telecom equities saw their prices decline 1.41%, transport (1%) and realty (0.57%); whereas consumer goods gained 0.8%, insurance (0.49%), banks and financial services (0.31%) and industrials (0.01%).

About 54% of the traded equities were in the red with major losers being Ooredoo, Vodafone Qatar, Milaha, Nakilat, al khaliji, Qatar Insurance, Commercial Bank, QIIB, Alijarah Holding, Medicare Group, Gulf International Services, Aamal Company, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Barwa and Ezdan; even as QNB, Woqod, Qatar Islamic Bank, Qatar First Bank and Qatari Investors Group were among the gainers.

Domestic institutions’ net selling strengthened substantially to QR88.15mn against QR37.64mn on Wednesday.

Local retail investors’ net profit booking also rose perceptibly to QR13.96mn compared to QR3.69mn on October 19.

The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) individual investors’ net selling stood unchanged at QR2.14mn against the previous day.

However, non-Qatari institutions’ net buying increased considerably to QR103.51mn compared to QR49.4mn on Wednesday.

The GCC institutions turned net buyers to the tune of QR0.22mn against net sellers of QR5.85mn on October 19.

Non-Qatari individual investors were also net buyers to the extent of QR0.54mn compared with net sellers of QR0.06mn the previous day.

Total trade volume fell 15% to 5.23mn shares, while value rose 13% to QR223.33mn but deals were down 6% to 2,482.

There was 69% plunge in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 0.61mn equities, 67% in value to QR8.34mn and 26% in transactions to 194.

The industrials sector’s trade volume plummeted 42% to 0.31mn stocks, value by 52% to QR13.4mn and deals by 15% to 317.

The transport sector reported 19% decline in trade volume to 0.3mn shares, 20% in value to QR16.58mn and 25% in transactions to 278.

However, the consumer goods sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 0.78mn equities and value more than quadrupled to QR61mn but on 8% shrinkage in deals to 318.

The insurance sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 0.05mn stocks and value doubled to QR3.46mn on almost doubled transactions to 95.

The banks and financial services sector saw 6% increase in trade volume to 2.1mn shares, 8% in value to QR95.18mn and 4% in deals to 931.

The real estate sector’s trade volume was up 3% to 1.08mn equities, value by 24% to QR25.37mn and transactions by 7% to 349.

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


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