Foreign funds’ strong buying interests led the Qatar Stock Exchange make huge gains of 373 points to surpass the pre-blockade levels by a wide margin last week.
Real estate, banking and insurance counters experienced higher than average demand, leading to a 3.89% surge in the 20-stock Qatar Index last week, which saw QSE chief executive Rashid bin Ali al-Mansoori say the positive performance reflects the strong fundamentals of Qatar’s economy and the investment attractiveness of the bourse and its listed companies.
The market witnessed a total volume of 71,384 QATR (Masraf Al Rayan sponsored exchange traded fund or ETF) valued at QR1.58mn trade across 60 transactions and as many as 69,072 QETF (Doha Bank sponsored ETF) valued at QR6.24mn change hands across 38 deals this week, which saw Aamal Company report a net profit (attributable to equity holders) of QR228.9mn in the first half (H1) of this year.
The Total Return Index gained 3.89%, All Share Index 5.27% and Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) 2.14% this week which saw Milaha report more than 11% increase year-on-year in net profit to QR297mn in H1, 2018.
The realty index soared 12.88%, banks and financial services (6.53%), insurance (5.38%), transport (2.78%) and industrials (2.74%); while telecom and consumer goods declined 3.47% and 0.53% respectively this week which saw QNB Financial Services, a QNB subsidiary, continue to maintain its lead among the 10 brokerage houses in the QSE with it accounting for 26.96% of the total share trade turnover during the first seven months of this year.
More than 59% of the traded stocks extended gains this week which saw no trading of sovereign bonds and treasury bills.
Major gainers included Ezdan, QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank, Commercial Bank, Doha Bank, Industries Qatar, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Qatari Investors Group, Qatar Insurance and Nakilat; even as Qatar First Bank, Ahlibank, Medicare Group, Al Khaleej Takaful, Ooredoo and Vodafone Qatar were among the losers this week.
The index has delivered 17.05% returns since the beginning of the year until the close of yesterday’s trading session making it the best performing market across emerging and developed markets globally, a QSE spokesman said, adding in 2018 the market has seen $1.45bn in foreign net inflows demonstrating confidence in Qatar.
However, domestic funds turned bearish and there was increased net selling by non-Qatari individuals this week which saw banking and realty sectors together account for more than 52% of total trade volume.
The banks and financial service sector accounted for 29% of the total trading volume, real estate (23%), transport (16%), telecom (13%), industrials (12%), insurance (5%) and consumer goods (3%) this week.
The banks and financial sector’s share in total trade turnover was 46%, industrials (16%), transport (10%), realty (9%), consumer goods and telecom (7% each), and insurance (5%) this week.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying increased significantly to QR203.1mn compared to QR176.77mn the week ended July 27.
Local retail investors’ net selling weakened substantially to QR88.22mn against QR178.42mn the previous week.
However, domestic funds turned net sellers to the tune of QR88.35mn compared with net buyers of QR19.73mn a week ago.
Non-Qatari individuals’ net profit booking grew perceptibly to QR26.53mn against QR17.99mn the week ended July 27.
Total trade volume rose 32% to 41.08mn shares, value by 26% to QR1.22bn and transactions by 22% to 18,711.
The real estate sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 9.3mn equities, value soared 79% to QR115.09mn and deals by 76% to 3,286.
The insurance sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 1.9mn stocks, value gained 71% to QR56.49mn and transactions by 40% to 689.
There was 76% surge in the transport sector’s trade volume to 6.5mn shares, 80% in value to QR122.94mn and 27% in deals to 1,654.
The industrials sector’s trade volume expanded 52% to 4.81mn equities, value by 44% to QR196.16mn and transactions by 15% to 3,985.
The banks and financial services sector saw 20% jump in trade volume to 12.07mn stocks, 22% in value to QR562.33mn and 12% in deals to 6,069.
However, telecom sector’s trade volume plummeted 31% to 5.39mn shares and value by 17% to QR84.32mn, while transactions rose 17% to 1,925
The consumer goods sector reported 10% decline in trade volume to 1.09mn equities, 23% in value to QR79.57mn and 8% in deals to 1,103.