Domestic institutions’ bearish outlook and weakened buying support from their Gulf counterparts led the Qatar Stock Exchange traverse the negative trajectory for the third consecutive session on Tuesday.
Profit booking continued to be intense within realty and telecom counters as the 20-stock Qatar Index shed 40 points or 0.38% to 10,304.77 points.
There was also net selling pressure from non-Qatari and Gulf individual investors on the bourse, whose year-to-date losses widened to 1.19%.
Islamic stocks were seen declining faster than the conventional ones in the market, where selling was particularly within small and midcap equities.
Trade turnover and volumes were on the decline in the market, where real estate, banking and telecom sectors together accounted for more than 91% of the total trade volumes.
Market capitalisation was down about QR1bn or 0.15% to QR556.85bn with small and midcap equities losing 0.43% and 0.31%, even as large and microcaps gained 0.07% and 0.05% respectively.
The Total Return Index fell 0.38% to 16,672.44 points, All Share Index by 0.27% to 2,835.95 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.49% to 3,843.21 points.
Realty sector saw its index shrink 1.75%, telecom (1.5%) and industrials (0.25%), while insurance gained 0.3%, transport (0.25%), banks and financial services (0.24%) and consumer goods (0.18%).
About 48% of the stocks were in the red with major losers being Ezdan, Barwa, Ooredoo, Vodafone Qatar, Qatari Investors Group, Gulf International Services, Aamal Company, Masraf Al Rayan, Doha Bank and Qatari German Company for Medical Devices.
Nevertheless, QNB, Qatar First Bank, Alijarah Holding, Qatar Insurance, Mazaya Qatar, Nakilat, Al Khaleej Takaful and Milaha were among the gainers.
Domestic institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR1.86mn compared with net buyers of QR18.18mn on Monday.
The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) institutions’ net buying weakened to QR1.11mn against QR7.37mn on December 26.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net profit booking increased to QR3.23mn compared to QR0.38mn the previous day.
The GCC individual investors turned net sellers to the extent of QR0.98mn against net buyers of QR0.14mn on Monday.
However, local retail investors were net buyers to the tune of QR5.12mn compared with net sellers of QR5.16mn on December 26.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net profit booking weakened considerably to QR0.18mn against QR20.16mn the previous day.
Total trade volume fell 1% to 6.49mn shares, value by 3% to QR152.43mn and deals by 16% to 2,120.
There was 81% plunge in the consumer goods sector’s trade volume to 0.1mn equities, 76% in value to QR4.32mn and 60% in transactions to 162.
The insurance sector’s trade volume plummeted 67% to 0.05mn stocks, value by 63% to QR2.35mn and deals by 72% to 44.
The market witnessed 60% shrinkage in the industrials sector’s trade volume to 0.22mn shares, 48% in value to QR13.2mn and 38% in transactions to 286.
The telecom sector’s trade volume tanked 27% to 1.51mn equities and value by 6% to QR21.3mn, while deals grew 22% to 271.
However, the real estate sector reported 84% surge in trade volume to 2.28mn stocks, 70% in value to QR47.18m and 18% in transactions to 416.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume soared 19% to 2.14mn shares and value by 3% to QR51.51mn, whereas deals were down 8% to 756.
The transport sector witnessed 5% increase in trade volume to 0.2mn equities, 71% in value to QR12.57mn and 58% in transactions to 185.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
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