Buoyancy in the global oil market and domestic factors led the Qatar Stock Exchange witness its capitalisation surpass QR500bn mark this week.
Buying was visible more within transport, banking and consumer goods counters, which helped the market stay above 9,000 levels, especially in the later part of this week which saw Qatar allowing foreign direct investment up to 100% in all the sectors.
Foreign institutional investors sustained stronger buying drove the Qatari bourse up 1.78% this week.
About 66% of the traded constituents extended gains this week which saw as many as 0.05mn sovereign bonds valued at QR499.5mn trade across two deals.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ increased buying interests also helped the bourse this week, which saw no trading of treasury bills.
On a year-to-date basis, the bourse's benchmark showed more than 6% expansion mainly on robust demand for banking, consumer goods and industrials sectors, whose indices were up in double digit.
Large and midcap scrips also performed well on a yearly basis.
The market witnessed a total volume of 0.21mn QATR (Masraf Al Rayan sponsored exchange traded fund or ETF) valued at QR4.5mn trade across 234 transactions and as many as 0.02mn QETF (Doha Bank sponsored ETF) valued at QR1.5mn change hands across 21 deals this week.
The Total Return Index gained 1.78%, All Share Index 1.79% and Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.9% this week.
The transport index shot up 4.78%, banks and financial services (2.95%), consumer goods (2.06%), realty (1.41%) and industrials (0.31%); whereas insurance and telecom declined 1.64% and 0.97% respectively this week which witnessed Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding (MPHC), Doha Bank and QNB dominate the trading ring in terms of volume and value.
Major gainers included MPHC, Qatar Islamic Bank, Nakilat, Doha Insurance, Al Meera, QNB, Milaha, Ooredoo, Ezdan and United Development Company; while Islamic Holding Group, Qatar Oman Investment, Al Khaleej Takaful, Vodafone Qatar and Ahlibank were among the losers this week which saw banking and industrials sectors together accounted for about 66% of total trade volumes.
The banking and financial services sector accounted for 33% of the total trading volume, industrials (33%), telecom (14%), real estate (9%), transport (6%), consumer goods (3%) and insurance (2%) this week.
The banks and financial sector’s share in total trade turnover was 59%, industrials (24%), telecom and consumer goods (5% each), transport (3%), and insurance and realty (2% each) this week.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying increased substantially to QR337.73mn against QR296.52mn the week ended May 17.
Non-Qatari individuals’ net buying also gained perceptibly to QR4.65mn compared to QR2.57mn the previous week.
However, domestic funds’ net selling strengthened considerably to QR218.43mn against QR117.61mn a week ago.
Local retail investors’ net profit booking fell influentially to QR123.95mn compared to QR181.32mn the week ended May 17.
Total trade volume rose 10% to 47.98mn shares, value by 7% to QR1.72bn and transactions by 4% to 21,556.
The industrials sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 15.62mn equities, value soared 42% to QR406.41mn and deals by 18% to 5,012.
The consumer goods sector reported 22% surge in trade volume to 1.43mn stocks, 31% in value to QR88.98mn and 63% in transactions to 1,847.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume was up 2% to 16.033mn shares, value by 6% to QR1.01bn and deals by 18% to 8,962.
There was 2% rise in the insurance sector’s trade volume to 1.1mn equities and less than 1% in value to QR37.45mn but on 11% fall in transactions to 598.
However, the transport sector’s trade volume plummeted 41% to 2.92mn stocks, value by 27% to QR56.76mn and deals by 34% to 1,628.
The real estate sector saw 27% plunge in trade volume to 4.09mn shares, 34% in value to QR41.71mn and 17% in transactions to 1,942.
The telecom sector’s trade volume tanked 20% to 6.78mn equities, value by 34% to QR79.19mn and deals by 30% to 1,567.
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