Profit booking pressure in the telecom and banking sectors on Thursday further dragged the Qatar Stock Exchange to make it settle below 9,800 levels.
Increased selling, especially by domestic institutions and local retail investors, led the 20-stock Qatar Index decline 0.4% for the fifth consecutive day to 9,766.33 points.
Doha Bank and Masraf Al Rayan sponsored exchange traded funds QATR and QETF declined 0.15% and 0.36% respectively.
The Islamic equities were seen declining faster than the other indices in the market which is up about 15% year-to-date.
Trade turnover and volumes were on the increase on the bourse, where real estate, banking and industrials sectors together accounted for more than three-fourth of the total volume.
The Total Return Index fell 0.4% to 17,207.2 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.72% to 2,340.24 points, while All Share Index gained 0.07% to 2,879.11 points.
The telecom index shrank 0.75% and banks and financial services 0.21%; while realty gained 0.76%, transport (0.66%), insurance (0.59%), consumer goods (0.2%) and industrials (0.14%).
Major losers included Barwa, Doha Bank, Masraf Al Rayan, Qatar First Bank, Alijarah Holding, Qatar Oman Investment, Qatari Investors Group, Medicare Group, Vodafone Qatar and Ooredoo; whereas Gulf International Services, Qatar Insurance, Ezdan, Gulf Warehousing, Commercial Bank, Salam International Investment and Nakilat were among the gainers.
Domestic institutions’ net profit booking increased considerably to QR111.04mn compared to QR24.51mn on September 19.
Local individual investors’ net selling strengthened significantly to QR54.34mn against QR21.73mn the previous day.
However, non-Qatari institutions’ net buying expanded influentially to QR160.96mn compared to QR64.15mn on Wednesday.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net buying expanded perceptibly to QR6.25mn against QR3.06mn on September 19.
The Gulf individuals turned net buyers to the tune of QR0.75mn compared with net sellers of QR0.79mn the previous day.
The Gulf institutions’ net profit booking weakened substantially to QR2.59mn against QR20.2mn on Wednesday.
Total trade volume more than doubled to 14.27mn shares and value also more than doubled to QR539.05mn on 62% increase in transactions to 5,350.
The real estate sector’s trade volume grew more than six-fold to 5.76mn equities and value also by more than six-fold to QR177.09mn and more than doubled deals to 1,346.
The transport sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 0.6mn stocks and value also more than tripled to QR15.39mn on 89% jump in transactions to 310.
The telecom sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 1.43mn shares, value soared 41% to QR21.1mn and deals by 17% to 385.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 2.98mn equities and value also more than doubled to QR187.46mn on 89% jump in transactions to 1,706.
There was 76% surge in the consumer goods sector’s trade volume to 0.58mn stocks, 11% in value to QR25.95mn and 1% in deals to 291.
The industrials sector’s trade volume soared 33% to 2.03mn shares, value by 71% to QR77.38mn and transactions by 13% to 1,048.
The insurance sector reported 25% expansion in trade volume to 0.89mn equities, 27% in value to QR34.67mn and 31% in deals to 264.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.
