Snapping eight consecutive days of bullish run, the Qatar Stock Exchange on Monday fell more than 60 points to retreat below 9,300 levels, mainly on increased net selling by foreign funds.
An across the board profit booking – particularly in real estate, telecom, transport and consumer goods – led the 20-stock Qatar Index decline 0.65% to 9,265 points.
Masraf Al Rayan sponsored exchange traded fund QATR fell 0.45%, while Doha Bank sponsored QETF gained 0.55%.
Islamic stocks were seen declining faster than the other indices on the market, which is up 8.7% year-to-date.
However, local and Gulf retail investors as well as Gulf funds turned bullish and there was also increased net buying by domestic institutions in the bourse, whose capitalisation fell 0.65% to QR504.79bn, mainly dragged by large and microcaps.
Trade turnover and volumes were on the increase on the market, where telecom and banking sectors together accounted for more than 69% of the total volume.
The Total Return Index shed 0.64% to 16,323.91 points, All Share Index by 0.67% to 2,677.17 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.74% to 2,272.67 points.
The realty index tanked 1.26%, telecom (0.85%), transport (0.81%), consumer goods (0.7%), banks and financial services (0.68%), industrials (0.31%) and insurance (0.2%).
More than 71% of the traded stocks extended losses with major shakers being Qatar First Bank, QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank, Medicare Group, Mannai Corporation, Industries Qatar, Gulf International Services, Mazaya Qatar, Ezdan, Barwa, Ooredoo, Vodafone Qatar, Gulf Warehousing and Nakilat; even as Commercial Bank, Dlala and Al Khaleej Takaful were among the gainers.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net selling increased influentially to QR11.08mn compared to QR0.91mn on Sunday.
Non-Qatari individual investors turned net sellers to the tune of QR1.08mn against net buyers of QR0.8mn on July 8.
However, domestic funds’ net buying strengthened perceptibly to QR7.48mn compared to QR7.1mn the previous day.
Local individuals turned net buyers to the extent of QR3.46mn against net profit takers of QR3.88mn on Sunday.
The Gulf institutions were also net buyers to the tune of QR0.8mn compared with net sellers of QR2.83mn on July 8.
The Gulf individuals turned net buyers to the extent of QR0.42mn against net profit takers of QR0.29mn the previous day.
Total trade volume grew 67% to 6.34mn shares, value by 21% to QR131.38mn and transactions by 10% to 2,853.
The telecom sector’s trade volume grew almost 20-fold to 2.98mn equities and value by more than 11-fold to QR34.74mn on almost quadrupled deals to 414.
The transport sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 0.46mn stocks and value more than doubled to QR7.7mn on more than doubled transactions to 208.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume soared 37% to 1.41mn shares, value by 7% to QR46.45mn and deals by less than 1% to 773.
The industrials sector saw 9% increase in trade volume to 0.51mn equities but on 15% fall in value to QR18.02mn despite 11% higher transactions at 553.
However, the real estate sector’s trade volume plummeted 56% to 0.68mn stocks, value by 48% to QR8.61mn and deals by 17% to 307.
There was 45% plunge in the consumer goods sector’s trade volume to 0.11mn shares, 9% in value to QR10.56mn and 29% in transactions to 174.
The insurance sector’s trade volume tanked 30% to 0.19mn equities, value by 43% to QR5.32mn and deals by 37% to 154.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.
