Qatar Petroleum’s move to allow a higher, up to 49%, foreign ownership limits in its energy subsidiaries on Sunday lifted the sentiments on the Qatar Stock Exchange, which gained more than 1% to settle near 8,700 levels.
A substantial buying interests, especially in those industrials and consumer goods stocks that are set to benefit from QP’s moves, led the 20-stock Qatar Index gain 95 points to 8,669.04 points.
“The move to increase FOL will not immediately translate as higher overseas holding but will certainly help attracting more global investments,” market sources said.
Any move towards eased foreign ownership in an emerging market is a welcome step but one also has to look at the ground realities, a market source said, highlighting that the actual FOL has been much lower than the threshold.
Local retail investors’ increased buying support and domestic institutions’ substantially weakened net selling helped the market, which is up 1.71% year-to-date.
The Doha Bank and Masraf Al Rayan sponsored exchange traded funds QETF and QATR saw 0.32% and 0.04% gains respectively.
Large cap equities witnessed robust buying interests on the bourse, whose capitalisation gained 1.73% to QR478.66bn.
Trade turnover and volumes were on the decline on the market, where industrials, realty and banking sectors together accounted for about 76% of the total volume.
The Total Return Index rose 1.11% to 15,273.2 points, All Share Index by 1.35% to 2,559.37 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.49% to 2,204.86 points.
The consumer goods index expanded 3.36%, industrials (2.43%), realty (1.31%), banks and financial services (1.15%) and telecom (0.49%); whereas industrials and transport declined 0.78% and 0.16% respectively.
More than 58% of the stocks extended gains with major movers being Industries Qatar, Gulf International Services, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Woqod, QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank, Commercial Bank, Ezdan, Mazaya Qatar and Ooredoo; even as Qatar First Bank, Qatari Investors Group, Vodafone Qatar and Milaha were among the losers.
Local retail investors’ net buying strengthened significantly to QR22.68mn against QR3.33mn the previous trading day.
Domestic funds’ net profit booking weakened substantially to QR39.89mn compared to QR61.8mn on March 29.
However, non-Qatari funds’ net buying declined significantly to QR1.72mn against QR23.84mn last Thursday.
The Gulf institutions’ net buying declined influentially to QR4.48mn compared to QR26.3mn the previous trading day.
Non-Qatari individuals turned net sellers to the tune of QR3.14mn against net buyers of QR8.74mn on March 29.
The Gulf individuals’ net profit booking increased marginally to QR1.54mn compared to QR0.42mn last Thursday.
Total trade volume fell less than 1% to 9.74mn shares, value by 15% to QR253.14mn and transactions by 21% to 3,670.
The consumer goods sector’s trade volume almost tripled to 0.6mn equities and value more than tripled to QR63.3mn on 58% increase in deals to 628.
The industrials sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 4.56mn stocks, value soared 12% to QR110.25mn and transactions by 50% to 1,297.
The telecom sector reported 57% surge in trade volume to 1.05mn shares and 23% in value to QR13.36mn but on 27% fall in deals to 264.
The transport sector’s trade volume was up 6% to 0.36mn equities and value by 3% to QR8.52mn, while transactions shrank 32% to 177.
However, the banks and financial services sector’s trade volume plummeted 67% to 1.4mn stocks, value by 74% to QR30.88mn and deals by 63% to 628.
There was 46% plunge in the insurance sector’s trade volume to 0.36mn shares, 63% in value to QR7.09mn and 44% in transactions to 129.
The real estate sector’s trade volume declined 11% to 1.43mn equities, value by 9% to QR19.76mn and deals by 36% to 547.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.
