Foreign funds’ increased buying support and their domestic counterparts’ substantially weakened net selling on Wednesday helped the Qatar Stock Exchange snap three days of bearish spell.
Transport, realty and industrials counters witnessed strong demand, thus helping the 20-stock Qatar Index gain 0.18% to 8,124.73 points.
Islamic equities, however, dropped vis-à-vis gains in the other indices on the bourse, whose year-to-date losses were at 22.15%.
However, local and Gulf retail investors turned bearish in the market, whose capitalisation grew 0.16% to QR442.33bn.
The market had seen its low of near 8,060 points within the first 70 minutes after which it rose to near 8,100 points and remained around that level for a long time. Some last minute strong purchases led the index overall settle 15 points higher.
Trade turnover and volumes were on the increase on the bourse, where banking, telecom and real estate sectors together accounted for about 81% of the total volume.
The Total Return Index rose 0.18% to 13,624.7 points and All Share Index by 0.13% to 2,277.17 points, while Al Rayan Islamic Index fell 0.23% to 3,188.35 points.
The transport index gained 1.22%, realty (0.69%), industrials (0.54%), telecom (0.23%) and banks and financial services (0.03%); while consumer goods and insurance shrank 1.54% and 1.31% respectively.
Major gainers included Nakilat, Ezdan, Doha Bank, al khaliji, Industries Qatar, Ooredoo, Qatar Electricity and Water and Milaha; even as QIIB, Qatar First Bank, Islamic Holding Group, Widam Food, Qatari Investors Group, Gulf International Services, Qatar Insurance and Mazaya Qatar were among the losers.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying rose considerably to QR27.23mn compared to QR12.21mn the previous day.
The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) funds turned net buyers to tune of QR0.16mn against net sellers of QR2.4mn on Tuesday.
Domestic institutions’ net profit booking weakened substantially to QR3.14mn compared to QR21.1mn on October 24.
However, local retail investors turned net sellers to the extent of QR20.93mn against net buyers of QR11.46mn the previous day.
The GCC retail investors were also net sellers to the tune of QR0.02mn compared with net buyers of QR0.38mn on Tuesday.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net profit booking strengthened perceptibly to QR3.32mn against QR0.56mn on October 24.
Total trade volume rose 64% to 8.36mn shares, value by 29% to QR180.59mn and deals by 18% to 2,192.
The telecom sector’s trade volume grew almost six-fold to 2.25mn equities and value more than quadrupled to QR33.52mn on more than doubled transactions to 323.
The consumer goods sector’s trade volume grew more than five-fold to 0.47mn stocks and value by almost five-fold to QR29.45mn on 39% increase in deals to 146.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume doubled to 3.28mn shares and value rose 24% to QR79.25mn, while transactions were down 4% to 757.
The real estate sector’s trade volume almost doubled to 1.2mn equities, value increased 6% to QR14.02mn and deals by 28% to 291.
However, the market witnessed 83% plunge in the insurance sector’s trade volume to 0.07mn stocks, 84% in value to QR3.02mn and 64% in transactions to 31.
The industrials sector’s trade volume plummeted 48% to 0.94mn shares and value by 32% to QR18.36mn, whereas deals were up 7% to 452.
There was 12% shrinkage in the transport sector’s trade volume to 0.15mn equities and 3% in value to QR2.97mn but on more than doubled transactions to 192.
In the debt market, there was no trading of government bonds but a total of 546 treasury bills valued at QR5.44mn traded across one deal.
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