Qatar Stock Exchange comfortably sailed past the 11,100 mark to touch a new nine-month high despite strong selling pressure from local retail investors.

Foreign institutions were increasingly net buyers and their domestic counterparts turned marginally bullish as the 20-stock Qatar Index rose 0.67% to 11,128.17 points on higher trading turnover and volumes.

Telecom and insurance were seen outperforming the market, which is up 6.7% year-to-date.

Islamic stocks were seen gaining slower than the conventional ones in the bourse, where banking, industrials and realty stocks constituted about 74% of the total trading volume.

Market capitalisation expanded 0.52% or more than QR3bn to QR594.46bn as large, mid and microcap equities rose 0.66%, 0.3% and 0.18% respectively; while small caps fell 0.21%.

The Total Return Index gained 0.67% to 18,004.64 points, All Share Index by 0.52% to 3,060.06 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.3% to 4,239.64 points.

Telecom stocks soared 1.96%, insurance (1.11%), banks and financial services and transport (0.49% each), industrials (0.47%) and realty (0.3%); whereas consumer goods declined 0.31%.

About 62% of the traded stocks extended gains with major movers being Ooredoo, Industries Qatar, Qatar Insurance, Barwa, Mazaya Qatar, Ezdan, Commercial Bank, Doha Bank, Masraf Al Rayan, Alijarah Holding, Milaha and Nakilat; even as QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank, Gulf International Services, Qatari Investors Group and Vodafone Qatar bucked the trend.

Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying strengthened to QR29.49mn compared to QR24.9mn on Sunday.

Domestic institutions turned net buyers to the tune of QR0.89mn against net sellers of QR39.88mn on August 14.

However, local retail investors’ net selling strengthened perceptibly to QR34.03mn compared to QR7.98mn the previous day.

The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) individual investors turned net sellers to the extent of QR2.38mn against net buyers of QR1.89mn on Sunday.

Non-Qatari individual investors were also net sellers to the tune of QR5.28mn compared with net buyers of QR0.92mn on August 14.

The GCC institutions’ net buying weakened to QR11.3mn against QR19.65mn the previous day.

Total trade volume rose 20% to 8.13mn shares, value by 61% to QR371.87mn and deals by 34% to 5,385.

The transport sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 0.46mn equities and value more than tripled to QR24.31mn on 77% jump in transactions to 343.

The insurance sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 0.2mn stocks and value also more than doubled to QR12.5mn on almost doubled deals to 213.

The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 3.79mn shares and value also more than doubled to QR164.52mn on 55% increase in transactions to 1,863.

The industrials sector’s trade volume soared 41% to 1.21mn equities to more than double value to QR83.76mn on 74% expansion in deals to 1,195.

There was 27% surge in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 0.98mn stocks, 80% in value to QR37.03mn and 54% in transactions to 745.

However, the real estate sector’s trade volume plummeted 56% to 1mn shares, value by 52% to QR20.79bn and deals by 22% to 598.

The consumer goods sector reported 44% plunge in trade volume to 0.49mn equities, 32% in value to QR28.95mn and 28% in transactions to 428.

In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.