Qatar Stock Exchange’s (QSE) market capitalisation increased by 0.17% to QR572.4bn on Thursday compared with QR571.4bn at the end of the previous week, QNB Financial Services (QNBFS) has said in its weekly market report.
QSE index increased by 28.77 points, or 0.27% during the week to close at 10,681.08.
Of the 44 listed companies, some 18 companies ended the week higher, while 24 fell and two remained unchanged.
Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) was the best performing stock for the week with a gain of 4.0% on 711,209 shares traded. On the other hand, Ahli Bank was the worst performing stock with a decline of almost 5% on 36 shares traded only.
Masraf Al Rayan (MAR), QNB Group (QNB) and CBQ were the primary contributors to the weekly index gains.
MAR was the biggest contributor to the index’s weekly increase, adding 23.5 points to the index. QNB was the second biggest contributor to the gain, contributing 21.6 points to the index.
Moreover, CBQ tacked on 13.1 points to the index. On the other hand, Qatar Insurance Co contributed negatively to the index, erasing 22.2 points from the index. Trading value during the week decreased by 16.3% to reach QR926.8mn compared with QR1.1bn in the prior week, QNBFS said. The ‘Banks and Financial Services’ sector led the trading value during the week, accounting for 39.64% of the total trading value.
The ‘Industrials’ sector was the second biggest contributor to the overall trading value, accounting for 20.5% of the total trading value.
Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) was the top value traded stock during the week with total traded value of QR97.4mn.
Trading volume decreased by 1.6% to reach 25.6mn shares compared with 26.0mn shares in the prior week.
The number of transactions increased by 9.9% to reach 17.002 versus 15,467 transactions in the prior week.
The ‘Banks and Financial Services’ sector led the trading volume, accounting for 30.6%, followed by the real estate sector, which accounted for 21.5% of the overall trading volume.
Vodafone Qatar was the top volume traded stock during the week with total traded volume of 4.3mn shares.
QNBFS said foreign institutions “remained bullish” during the week with net buying of QR81.5mn compared with buying of QR168.1mn in the prior week.
Qatari institutions remained bearish with net selling of QR8.6mn compared with net selling of QR14.3mn the week before.
Foreign retail investors remained bearish for the week with net selling of QR4.4mn compared with net selling of QR22.4mn in the prior week.
Qatari retail investors remained bearish with net selling of QR68.4mn compared with net selling of QR131.3mn the week before.
In 2016 year to date (YTD), foreign institutions bought (on a net basis) nearly $600mn worth of Qatari equities, QNBFS said.