Increased buying support from foreign funds and local retail investors lifted the Qatar Stock Exchange by a huge 219 points to place its sensitive index near the 8,800 mark this week.
Strong demand, especially for large cap equities, helped the bourse add more than QR14bn in capitalisation this week which saw Qatar Petroleum raising the non-Qatari ownership limit in the energy sector companies and in its subsidiaries listed on the QSE to 49%, and enhancing the shareholder ownership limits in these companies to no more than 2%.
The market certainly had a sentiment booster which has the potential to attract more overseas investments, market experts said.
The banking and consumer goods counters witnessed stronger demand this week which witnessed Doha Insurance obtain final approval from the Qatar Central Bank to establish a representative office in London.
Notwithstanding the increased selling pressure from domestic funds and weakened buying interests of non-Qatari individuals, the 20-stock Qatar Index settled 2.55% higher this week which saw Capital Intelligence, the international credit rating agency, affirm QIIB’s financial strength rating at ‘A’ with a "stable" outlook.
Islamic stocks, nevertheless, were seen gaining slower than the conventional ones this week, which saw another global credit rating agency Standard & Poor's affirm Qatar Islamic Bank's ‘A-’ issuer credit rating.
The market witnessed a total volume of 1.4mn QATR valued at QR30.93mn trade across 676 transactions and as many as 0.09mn QETF valued at QR8.09mn change hands across 137 deals this week, which saw Doha Bank open its Chennai branch in India.
The Total Return Index soared 2.56%, the All Share Index 2.6% and Al Rayan Islamic Index 1.33% this week, which saw no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.
The banks and financial services index surged 4.43%, followed by consumer goods (3.65%), telecom (2.38%), industrials (2.31%) and realty (0.29%); whereas transport and insurance declined 2.29% and 0.01% respectively this week which witnessed Qatar’s commercial banks’ total assets grow 10% year-on-year to QR1.38trn this February.
More than 45% of the traded stocks extended gains with major movers being Gulf International Services, Commercial Bank, Woqod, Vodafone Qatar and QNB; even as Doha Insurance, Zad Holding, Milaha and Doha Bank were among the losers this week, which saw the industrials, banking, telecom and real estate sectors account for about 91% of total trade volumes.
The industrials sector accounted for 27% of the total volume, banks and financial services (26%), telecom (20%), realty (19%), transport (4%), consumer goods (3%) and insurance (2%).
The industrials and banks and financial services’ share in total trade turnover were 30% each, real estate (12%), consumer goods (11%), telecom (9%), transport (5%) and insurance (3%) this week.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying strengthened influentially to QR75.23mn compared to QR65.57mn a week ago.
Local retail investors’ net buying grew considerably to QR51.16mn against QR26.87mn the previous week.
However, domestic funds’ net selling increased significantly to QR134.12mn compared to QR109.22mn the week ended March 29.
Non-Qatari individuals’ net buying weakened substantially to QR7.98mn against QR16.78mn a week ago.
Total trade volume rose 34% to 57.94mn shares, value by 23% to QR1.27bn and transactions by 5% to 17,710.
The telecom sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 11.67mn equities and value more than doubled to QR119.57mn on a 44% jump in deals to 1,822.
The transport sector’s trade volume doubled to 2.42mn stocks and value more than doubled to QR61.47mn on an 11% increase in transactions to 998.
The industrials sector reported an 83% surge in trade volume to 15.54mn shares, 52% in value to QR384.41mn and 53% in deals to 4,678.
The real estate sector’s trade volume shot up 47% to 10.54mn equities, value by 62% to QR151.64mn and transactions by less than 1% to 3,039.
There was a 1% rise in the consumer goods sector’s trade volume to 1.63mn stocks, 45% in value to QR141.01mn and 9% in deals to 1,861.
However, the insurance sector’s trade volume plummeted 42% to 1.2mn shares, value by 51% to QR32.82mn and transactions by 30% to 625.
The banks and financial services sector saw a 22% plunge in trade volume to 14.94mn equities, 13% in value to QR375.54mn and 23% in deals to 4,687.
