By Santhosh V. Perumal/Business Reporter
Nakilat on Tuesday saw its stocks vault 4% on hike in foreign ownership limit up to 49% but that did not instil an overall confidence in the Qatar Stock Exchange, which fell 33 points to remain under the 11,800 mark.
Selling pressure was pronounced in the realty, telecom, insurance and banking sectors as the 20-stock Qatar Index shed 0.28% to 11,755.67 points amid expansion in overall trade volumes.
Gulf institutions and non-Qatari retail investors turned bearish and there was also increased net selling by domestic institutions in the market, which is down 4.31% year-to-date.
The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks was seen falling faster than the other indices in the bourse, where trading was largely skewed towards the telecom, real estate and transport sectors, which together constituted about 79% of the volume.
Market capitalisation was down 0.32% or about QR2bn to QR616.56bn with small and large equities shrinking 0.32% and 0.28%; while mid and micro caps rose 0.54% and 0.05% respectively.
The Total Return Index fell 0.28% to 18,272.5 points, All Share Index by 0.27% to 3,125.81 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.44% to 4,469.58 points.
Realty stocks tanked 1.15%, telecom (0.66%), insurance (0.63%), banks and financial services (0.3%), consumer goods (0.19%) and industrials (0.08%); whereas transport surged 2.25%.
Major losers included Mazaya Qatar, Ezdan, Vodafone Qatar, Ooredoo, QNB, Commercial Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Doha Bank, Dlala and Industries Qatar; even as Qatar National Cement and Gulf International Services also bucked the trend.
Domestic institutions’ net profit booking notably strengthened to QR18.1mn compared to QR7.12mn on October 19.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR7.62mn against net buyers of QR0.03mn on Monday.
Non-Qatari individual investors were also net sellers to the extent of QR5.84mn compared with net buyers of QR4.89mn the pervious day.
However, local retail investors turned net buyers to the tune of QR8.18mn against net sellers of QR15.56mn on October 19.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying increased to QR27.79mn compared to QR22.38mn on Monday.
The GCC individual investors’ net profit booking fell to QR4.45mn against QR4.62mn the previous day.
Total trade volume rose 11% to 13.6mn shares and value gained 19% to QR397.02mn (excluding rights to subscribe in the rights issue), while deals were down 7% to 4,023.
The industrials sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 1.46mn equities and value also more than doubled to QR96.41mn on 16% jump in transactions to 925.
The transport sector’ trade volume more than doubled to 3.38mn stocks and value also more than doubled to QR83.11mn on more than doubled deals to 767.
The consumer goods sector saw 60% surge in trade volume to 0.56mn shares, 17% in value to QR27.07mn and 11% in transactions to 325.
The real estate sector’s trade volume was up 9% to 3.49mn equities and value by 33% to QR85.71mn, while deals were down 6% to 775.
However, there was 56% plunge in the insurance sector’s trade volume to 0.04mn stocks, 57% in value to QR3.41mn and 51% in transactions to 53.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume plummeted 44% to 0.86mn shares, value by 48% to QR42.03mn and deals by 44% to 593.
The market witnessed 23% shrinkage in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 3.82mn equities, 26% in value to QR59.28mn and 36% in transactions to 585.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
