By Santhosh V Perumal/Business Reporter

Buying support from local retail and institutions extended the winning streak at the Qatar Exchange for the fourth day yesterday.
Mainly paced by micro and mid cap equities, the bourse’s 20-stock benchmark rose 0.13% or 11 points to 8,692.50 points.
The market is however down 0.99% year-to-date.
More than 57% of the stocks extended gains to investors with prime movers being Commercialbank, Masraf Al Rayan, Industries Qatar (IQ), Qatar Electricity and Water, Nakilat and Barwa, even as Qatar Islamic Bank, QNB and Mawashi bucked the trend.
The indices of industry and services gained 1.10% and 1.04%; whereas those of insurance and banks lost 2.92% and 0.40% respectively.
Market capitalisation fell 0.13% or QR57mn to QR448.61bn as large cap stocks were down 0.05%, even as micro, mid and small caps gained 0.54%, 0.45% and 0.17% respectively.
Of the 42 stocks, 24 advanced, while only 15 declined, two were unchanged and one was not traded.
Qatari individual investors turned bullish as they were net buyers to the tune of 5.20% compared with net sellers of 3.92% the previous day.
A higher 38.53% of them purchased equities against 33.61% on Tuesday whereas a lower 33.33% sold compared to 37.53%.
Domestic institutions were increasingly bullish as their net buying surged to 11.55% from 5.66% the previous day.
A much higher 33.57% of them bought equities compared to 18.78% on Tuesday although a higher 22.02% offloaded against 13.12%.
On the other hand, foreign institutions were increasingly into profit-booking as their net selling zoomed to 17.14% from 3.09% the previous day.
A much lower 18.13% of them were into buying against 36.42% on Tuesday and a lower 35.27% of them into selling compared to 39.51%.
Non-Qatari retail investors continued to be bullish but with lesser vigour as their net buying sunk to 0.38% from 1.35% the previous day.
A lower 9.77% of them were into buying compared to 11.20% on Tuesday and a marginally lower 9.39% were into offloading against 9.85%.
Total trading volumes surged 49% to 6.75mn equities, value by 58% to QR329.24mn and deals by 39% to 3,875.
The industrial sector’s trading volume more than doubled to 1.48mn shares and value almost quadrupled to QR117.68mn on more than doubled transactions to 813.
The services sector’s trading volume shot up 47% to 3.16mn shares, value by 53% to QR106.59mn and deals by 13% to 1,677.
The banking sector’s trading volume gained 28% to 2.01mn shares, whereas value fell 1% to QR98.74mn but transactions rose 57% to 1,280.
However, the insurance sector’s trading volume shrank 38% to 0.10mn shares, value by 38% to QR6.24mn and deals by 17% to 105.
Actively traded stocks (in terms of volume) were Barwa (879,923 shares); Rayan (824,734); IQ (665,236); Gulf International Services (552,036) and United Development Company (544,954).