By Santhosh V Perumal
Business Reporter
The Qatar Exchange yesterday fell 1.42%, its largest single-day decline in seven weeks, to close below the 8,600 mark. More than 71% stocks witnessed declines as foreign institutions largely pared their exposure.
The QE’s benchmark index yesterday fell 1.42%, its largest single-day decline in seven weeks, to close below the 8,600 mark
Led by large and small cap equities, the 20-stock benchmark fell 123 points to hit a three-week low of 8,580.05 points.
The market is down 1.17% year-to-date.
Industries Qatar (IQ), QNB, Masraf Al Rayan, Commercialbank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Nakilat and Barwa were among the prime losers.
The industrial sector witnessed the maximum selling pressure as its group index plunged 2.29%, followed by banks (1.63%) and services (0.71%); while insurance was unchanged.
Market capitalisation fell 0.80% or about QR4bn to QR455.60bn with large, small, micro and mid cap equities losing 1.50%, 1.29%, 0.91% and 0.83% respectively.
Of the 42 stocks, only three advanced, while 30 declined, five were unchanged and four were not traded.
Foreign institutions continued to be profit takers, but with lesser intensity, on their lower exposure as net selling fell to 7.44% from 9.96% the previous day.
A much lower 19.03% of them were into buying compared to 36.52% on Sunday and a much lower 26.47% were into selling against 46.48%.
Domestic institutions’ bullish grip considerably weakened as their net buying sunk to 2.75% from 8.63% the previous day.
A much higher 35.86% of them bought equities against 20.83% on Sunday and a much higher 33.11% of them sold compared to 12.20%.
Qatari individual investors were increasingly bullish as their net buying rose to 1.89% from 1.58% the previous day.
A marginally higher 33.86% of them purchased equities compared to 32.90% on Sunday and a marginally higher 31.97% sold against 31.32%.
Non-Qatari retail investors turned bullish as they were net buyers to the tune of 2.80% compared with net sellers of 0.26% the previous day.
A higher 11.25% of them were into buying against 9.75% on Sunday whereas a lower 8.45% were into offloading compared to 10.01%.
Total trading volume shrank 56% to 9.50mn equities, while value rose 9% to QR377.05mn and deals by 32% to 4,946.
Banks’ trading volume more than doubled to 4.18mn, so did value to QR201.19mn on a 77% jump in transactions to 1,953.
The industrial sector’s trading volume was up 5% to 1.09mn shares, value by 57% to QR79.39mn and deals by 95% to 1,039.
However, the services sector’s trading volume plummeted 78% to 4.20mn shares, value by 53% to QR94.83mn and transactions by 8% to 1,908.
The insurance sector’s trading volume plunged 33% to 0.02mn shares and value by 26% to QR1.65mn whereas deals surged 31% to 46.
Actively traded stocks (in terms of volume) were Masraf Al Rayan (2.84mn shares); Nakilat (896,840); Mawashi (773,373); IQ (513,171) and QNB (443,156).
