By Santhosh V Perumal
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Domestic institutions’ selling pressure yesterday dragged the Qatar Exchange.
Profit booking was seen particularly in real estate, consumer goods and transport segments as the 20-stock Qatar Index (based on price data) fell 0.27% to 9,643.50 points.
Local retail investors were less inclined to sell and non-Qatari individual investors were marginally bullish in the market, which is, however, up 15.37% year-to-date.
There was an expansion in overall market liquidity, mainly on higher volumes in the insurance, transport and realty sectors.
Major losers included Barwa, United Development Company, Nakilat, QNB, Doha Bank, Qatar General Insurance and Reinsurance, Al Khaleej Takaful, Gulf International Services and Qatari Investors Group; even as Industries Qatar, Ezdan Real Estate and Qatar Islamic Bank bucked the trend.
The 20-stock Total Return Index also fell 0.27% to 13,778.35 points, All Share Index (with wider constituents) by 0.32% to 2,421.03 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.31% to 2,774.95 points. All the three indices factored in dividend income as well.
Real estate stocks shrank 1.17%, insurance (0.57%), consumer goods (0.5%), transport (0.47%), industrials (0.27%) and banks and financial services (0.25%); while telecoms rose 0.18%.
Total market capitalisation was up 0.05% or QR24mn to QR523.84bn. Mid and small cap equities were seen losing about 1% each; while large caps were unchanged.
Domestic institutions turned bearish as they were net sellers to the tune of QR2.89mn against net buyers of QR5.14mn the previous day.
Foreign institutions were bullish as their net buying was QR14.12mn compared to QR12.78mn on Sunday.
However, non-Qatari individuals turned marginally bullish that they were net buyers to the extent of QR2.49mn against net sellers of QR4.75mn the previous day.
Qatari individual investors continued to be profit takers as their net selling amounted to QR13.72mn compared to QR13.17mn on Sunday.
Total trading volume rose 50% to 6.03mn stocks, value by 72% to QR267.38mn and transactions by 30% to 2,372.
The insurance sector’s trading volume jumped almost seven-fold to 1.11mn stocks and value by about nine-fold to QR61.94mn on a 32% expansion in transactions to 119.
The transport sector’s trading volume more than quadrupled to 0.37mn stocks and value more than doubled to QR10.21mn on more than doubled deals to 207.
The real estate sector saw a 64% expansion in trading volume to 2.2mn shares, 63% in value to QR52.51mn and 69% in transactions to 600.
There was a 30% surge in the banking sector’s trading volume to 1.16mn stocks, 14% in value to QR56.51mn and 12% in deals to 662. However, the telecom sector’s trading volume plummeted 33% to 0.12mn shares, while value rose 7% to QR3.24mn and transactions by 2% to 58.
The consumer goods sector’s trading volume tanked 29% to 0.6mn stocks, whereas value more than doubled to QR40.14mn and deals gained 38% to 332.
The industrials sector witnessed 4% shrinkage in trading volume to 0.48mn shares, while value was up 6% to QR42.81mn but on 2% fall in transactions to 394.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and bonds.
