By Santhosh V. Perumal
Business Reporter

Five of the seven sectors witnessed profit-booking and losers outnumbered gainers, but the Qatar Stock Exchange settled in the positive trajectory on Monday, failing to break the 12,000 resistance level.
Local retail and institutions continued to be bullish, but with lesser intensity, as the 20-stock Qatar Index gained a marginal 0.04% to 11,913.58 points on higher trade volumes.
The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks was seen gaining the most in the market, which is however down 3.03% year-to-date.
Both Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and non-Qatari retail investors were seen net sellers in the bourse, where trading was largely skewed towards the real estate sector, whose stocks constituted about 57% of the overall trading volume.
Market capitalisation was down 0.1%, or QR65mn, to QR631.98bn with large, mid and micro cap equities losing 0.18%, 0.13% and 0.09% respectively; while small caps rose 0.46%.
The Total Return Index was up 0.04% to 18,517.94 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.25% to 4,689.83 points; while the All Share Index was down 0.05% to 3,191.54 points.
Realty and consumer goods stocks gained 0.55% and 0.03% respectively; whereas telecom shrank 0.77%, followed by insurance (0.23%), transport (0.22%), banks and financial services (0.14%) and industrials (0.12%).
Major gainers included Industries Qatar, United Development Company, Barwa, Mazaya Qatar, Doha Bank, Gulf International Services, Alijarah Holding and Qatari German Company for Medical Devices; even as QNB, Ooredoo, Vodafone Qatar, Nakilat, Ezdan, Qatar Islamic Bank, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding and Qatar Electricity and Water bucked the trend.
Local retail investors’ net buying weakened to QR9.2mn compared to QR10.01mn the previous day.
Domestic institutions’ net buying fell to QR5.04mn against QR12.54mn on Sunday.
GCC individual investors turned net sellers to the tune of QR0.51mn compared with net buyers of QR2.77mn on July 26.
Non-Qatari individual investors were net sellers to the extent of QR3.26mn.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net profit-booking weakened to QR9.79mn against QR24.54mn the previous day.
GCC institutions’ net profit-booking also weakened to QR0.64mn compared to QR0.84mn on Sunday.
Total trade volume rose 52% to 5.28mn shares, value by 27% to QR213.35mn and deals by 6% to 5,937.
The real estate sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 3mn equities and value more than tripled to QR87.04mn on an 83% increase in transactions to 1,579.
The telecom sector saw a 90% surge in trade volume to QR0.38mn stocks, 94% in value to QR8.53mn and 10% in deals to 199.
The insurance sector’s trade volume grew 47% to 0.22mn shares and value by 46% to QR12.15mn on more-than-doubled transactions to 790.
There was a 27% jump in the transport sector’s trade volume to 0.14mn equities and 45% in value to QR7.07mn but on a 32% shrinkage in deals to 129.
The consumer goods sector’s trade volume expanded 15% to 0.39mn stocks, while value fell 48% to QR20.21mn and transactions by 36% to 893.
The banks and financial services sector reported a 3% increase in trade volume to 0.75mn shares and 10% in value to QR53.84mn but on a 6% fall in deals to 1,324.
However, the industrials sector’s trade volume plunged 45% to 0.39mn equities, value by 33% to QR24.52mn and transactions by 14% to 1,023.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.