By Santhosh V. Perumal
Business Reporter
Qatar Stock Exchange was back in the negative turf on Thursday mainly on foreign institutions’ bearish outlook and substantially lower buying support from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) counterparts.
Profit booking pressure – especially in the industrials, banking and telecom counters – led to a 0.11% decline in the 20-stock Qatar Index to 11,453.13 points on lower overall volumes.
Nevertheless, local retail investors turned bullish and there was a drastic fall in the selling pressure from domestic institutions as well as non-Qatari individual investors in the market, which is down 6.78% year-to-date.
The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks was, however, seen gaining vis-à-vis declines in the other indices in the bourse, where trading was largely skewed towards the consumer goods and real estate sectors, which together constituted more than 47% of the trading volume.
Market capitalisation shed 0.33% or about QR2bn to QR603.28bn with large and small cap equities melting 0.51% and 0.32%; while mid and micro caps gained 0.61% and 0.52% respectively.
The Total Return Index fell 0.11% to 17,802.24 points and All Share Index by 0.12% to 3,050.39 points; while Al Rayan Islamic Index rose 0.18% to 4,325.96 points.
Industrials stocks shrank 0.5%, banks and financial services (0.45%), telecom (0.27%) and consumer goods (0.03%); whereas transport gained 1.69%, insurance (0.65%) and realty (0.23%).
Major losers in QNB, Industries Qatar, Commercial Bank, al khaliji, Gulf International Services, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Ezdan and Vodafone Qatar; even as Ooredoo, Nakilat, Barwa, Mazaya Qatar, Masraf Al Rayan, Qatar Islamic Bank and United Development Company bucked the trend.
Non-Qatari institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR2.53mn against net buyers of QR61.67mn on September 30.
The GCC institutions’ net buying substantially weakened to QR1.61mn compared to QR33mn on Wednesday.
However, local retail investors turned net buyers to the extent of QR21.99mn against net sellers of QR20.88mn the previous day.
Domestic institutions’ net selling substantially declined to QR17.87mn compared to QR59.69mn on September 30.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net profit booking also shrank to QR1.92mn against QR10.89mn on Wednesday.
The GCC individual investors’ net selling weakened to QR1.23mn compared to QR3.13mn the previous day.
Total trade volume fell 22% to 5.42mn shares, value by 44% to QR209.23mn and deals by 29% to 3,361.
The banks and financial services sector reported 67% plunge in trade volume to 0.66mn equities, 64% in value to QR52.41mn and 58% in transactions to 566.
The insurance sector’s trade volume tanked 64% to 0.08mn stocks, value by 65% to QR7.29mn and deals by 60% to 60.
The market witnessed 60% shrinkage in the telecom sector’s trade volume to QR0.42mn shares, 58% in value to QR13.05mn and 28% in transactions to 406.
The industrials sector’s trade volume shrank 36% to 0.96mn equities, value by 43% to QR64.17mn and deals by 33% to 1,052.
There was 27% decline in the real estate sector’s trade volume to 1.19mn stocks, 24% in value to QR28.51mn and 3% in transactions to 490.
However, the consumer goods sector’s trade volume grew more than 15-fold to 1.37mn shares and value more than doubled to QR26.17mn on 66% expansion in deals to 323.
The transport sector saw 68% surge in trade volume to 0.74mn equities, 2% in value to QR17.63mn and 18% in transactions to 464.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
