By Santhosh V. Perumal
Business Reporter
Selling pressure, notably in consumer goods stocks, on Monday manoeuvred the Qatar Stock Exchange back onto the negative trajectory.
Islamic stocks weakened faster as the 20-stock Qatar Index (based on price data) shed 0.1% to 11,836.07 points amid rise in trade volumes.
Foreign institutions’ increased selling led to an overall bearish momentum on the bourse, which is down 3.68% year-to-date.
Domestic institutions’ selling intensity, however, weakened in the market, where realty, banking and industrials stocks cornered more than 78% of the total trading volume.
Market capitalisation was down 0.07%, or QR43mn, to QR646.28bn with small, micro and mid cap equities melting 1.41%, 0.58% and 0.47% respectively; while large caps were up 0.1%.
The Total Return Index fell 0.1% to 17,653.39 points, the All Share Index by 0.19% to 3,044.94 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.5% to 4,015.81 points.
Consumer goods stocks plummeted 1.43%, followed by industrials (0.34%), insurance (0.17%), banks and financial services (0.08%), real estate (0.05%) and transport (0.03%), while telecom gained 0.31%.
About 62% of the stocks were in the red with major losers being Commercial Bank, Masraf Al Rayan, Qatari Investors Group, Qatar Electricity and Water, Gulf International Services, Mazaya Qatar, Barwa and Vodafone Qatar.
However, QNB, Aamal Company, Ezdan, Gulf Warehousing and Islamic Holding Group bucked the trend.
Foreign institutions’ net buying plunged to QR15.38mn against QR46.18mn the previous day.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net selling rose to QR17.18mn compared to QR9.6mn on Sunday.
However, Qatari retail investors turned net buyers to the tune of QR4.22mn against net sellers of QR16.68mn on Sunday.
Domestic institutions’ net profit-booking sunk to QR2.47mn compared to QR19.86mn the previous day.
Total trade volume rose 30% to 8.72mn shares, value by 19% to QR417.98mn and transactions by 30% to 6,191.
The transport sector’s trade volume grew more than five-fold to 0.42mn stocks and value by about six-fold to QR13.42mn on more-than-quadrupled deals to 296.
The consumer goods sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 0.78mn equities and value almost doubled to QR28.9mn on a 77% jump in transactions to 456.
The real estate sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 2.94mn shares and value almost doubled to QR80.96mn on a 58% expansion in deals to 1,161.
The industrials sector saw its trade volume soar 69% to 1.47mn stocks and value more than doubled to QR101.83mn on a 58% rise in transactions to 1,434.
However, banks and financial services reported a 23% plunge in trade volume 2.41mn equities and 20% in value to QR177.25mn but on a 6% gain in deals to 2,475.
The telecom sector’s trade volume tanked 23% to 0.6mn shares, value by 27% to QR10.53mn and transactions by 23% to 258.
The insurance sector’s trade volume was down 9% to 0.1mn stocks, value by 3% to QR5.09mn and deals by 3% to 111.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
