By Santhosh V Perumal/Business Reporter

 

The Qatar Exchange yesterday stayed on the positive trajectory for the second day on buying interests, especially in telecom and banking stocks.

Foreign institutions were seen imparting bullish momentum as the 20-stock Qatar Index (based on price data) rose 0.39% to 9,704.98 points.

Major gainers included QNB, Ooredoo, Doha Bank, Industries Qatar and Qatari Investors Group; even as United Development Company (UDC), Barwa and Widam Food bucked the trend.

UDC, Doha Bank and Gulf International Services were among the most active by volume and value in the market, which is up 16.10% year-to-date.

The 20-stock Total Return Index also gained 0.39% to 13,866.20 points and the All Share Index (comprising wider constituents) by 0.62% to 2,451.97 points; while the Al Rayan Islamic Index fell 0.88% to 2,805.72 points.

All the three indices factored in dividend income as well.

Under the All Share Index category, the telecom index gained 1.53%, followed by insurance (1.42%), banks and financial services (1.20%), consumer goods (0.73%), industrials (0.27%) and transport (0.02%); whereas real estate shrank 2.95%.

Market capitalisation stood at QR533.70bn. Of the 42 stocks, 17 each advanced and declined, while five were unchanged and three were not traded.

Foreign institutions were net buyers to the tune of 7.07% as a higher 28.46% of them were into buying compared to 21.39% into selling.

Domestic institutions were however net sellers to the extent of 0.06% with a marginally higher 33.76% into offloading against 13.70% into purchasing.

Qatari individual investors were net sellers to the tune of 8.38% as a higher 53.81% of them sold compared to 45.43% of who bought stocks.

Non-Qatari individual investors were net buyers to the extent of 1.38% as a higher 12.41% of them bought equities against 11.03% who sold.

A total of 13.10mn stocks valued QR518.41mn changed hands across 5,551 transactions.

The realty sector saw a total of 7.41mn shares with a value of QR168.56mn trade across 1,301 deals; while the banks and financial services sector witnessed 2.84mn equities worth QR164.49mn change hands across 1,860 transactions.

A total of 1.30mn industrials stocks valued at QR102.44mn were traded in 1,206 deals and a total of 0.19mn insurance equities worth QR10.82mn changed hands across 136 transactions.

The consumer goods sector witnessed 0.41mn shares worth QR30.55mn change hands across 388 deals.

Telecom and transport sectors reported stock trading volume of 0.43mn and 0.50mn, value of QR25.82mn and QR15.72mn and transactions of 330 each respectively.

In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills but as many as 10,000 bonds were traded across three transactions.