Selling pressure was seen more among transport and realty stocks, which led the 20-stock Qatar Index plummet 1.87% during the week which saw global index compiler FTSE Russell disclose that the second 50% tranche of transitioning Qatar into secondary emerging market index would be effective from March 19.
Islamic stocks were seen declining slower than the main index during the week which saw market heavyweight Industries Qatar (IQ) say that it would make "essential" investments, especially to upgrade its existing assets, and "selectively" invest in other capital investment projects, while optimising costs.
Overall trade turnover and volumes expanded during the week which saw banking, real estate, industrials and telecom sectors together account for about 82% of the volumes.
In volumes, banks and financial services constituted 30% of the total, followed by realty (23%), industrials (15%), telecom (13%), insurance (9%), consumer goods (6%) and transport (4%) during the week which saw Qatar Petroleum plan integration of Qatar Vinyl Company, a part of Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding (MPHC), into Qatar Petrochemical Company, an IQ subsidiary.
In value, banks and financial services’ share was 33%, followed by industrials (20%), real estate (15%), insurance (12%), consumer goods (11%), telecom (6%) and transport (3%) during the week which witnessed Gulf International Services plan investments of more than QR1bn in the next five years.
Opening the week feebly strong at 10,937 points, the market added mere two points on Monday but to saw a huge profit booking, its highest largest single-day drop of the year, on Tuesday to take the index to a low of 10,702 points. Thereafter, some buying pressure propped up the index on the subsequent day but only to profit booking on the last day, thus the index overall settled at 10,721 points during the week.
The 20-stock Total Return Index lost 1.46%, All Share Index (comprising wider constituents) by 1.49% and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 1.51% during the week which saw FTSE Russell announce that Aamal Company will have an increased investable weight from 20% to 28% as the sum of restricted shareholders is “more restrictive than the official foreign ownership limit”.
The transport index plummeted 3.26%, realty (2.37%), consumer goods (1.61%), banks and financial services (1.39%), telecom (1.19%) and industrials (0.95%), while insurance was up 0.06% during the week which saw FTSE Russell unchanged the investable weight of Qatari Investors Group due to it “failing the headroom test”.
Market capitalisation eroded 1.97% to QR577.21bn during the week which witnessed Ezdan Holding Group report net profit of QR1.85bn in 2016.
More than 61% of the stocks were in the red with major losers being QNB, IQ, Milaha, Aamal Company, Barwa, Ooredoo, Milaha, Qatar General Insurance and Reinsurance, Mazaya Qatar, Ezdan, Gulf Warehousing, Nakilat, al khaliji, Masraf Al Rayan, QIIB, Woqod, Medicare Group and Mannai Corporation during the week which saw Qatar’s trade surplus surged more than 62% month-on-month and more than 2% year-on-year in January to QR10.98bn.
Nevertheless, among the gainers were Commercial Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Doha Bank, Qatar Insurance, Alijarah Holding, Dlala, Islamic Holding Group, MPHC, Al Khaleej Takaful, Qatar Islamic Insurance and United Development Company during the week which featured a report from global credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s that the Middle East and North African sovereign long-term commercial borrowing is slated to be lower by 20% to $136bn this year with the Gulf countries engaged in fiscal consolidation.
Total trade volume rose 8% to 61.36mn shares and value by 15% to QR2.39bn, while transactions were down 2% to 25,600 during the week which saw Milaha’s 2016 net profit at QR711mn.
The banks and financial services sector saw 71% surge in trade volume to 18.56mn equities, 49% in value to QR799.01mn and 23% in deals to 8,379.
The industrials sector’s trade volume soared 40% to 9.24mn stocks, value by 52% to QR469.85mn and transactions by 20% to 6,162.
There was 33% expansion in the insurance sector’s trade volume to 5.54mn shares and 27% in value to QR284.22mn but on 42% decline in deals to 825.
However, the transport sector’s trade volume plummeted 48% to 2.18mn equities, value by 43% to QR77.35mn and transactions by 5% to 1,769.
The consumer goods sector reported 31% plunge in trade volume to 3.5mn stocks, 24% in value to QR255.5mn and 29% in deals to 3,004.
The real estate sector’s trade volume tanked 18% to 14.31mn shares, value by 11% to QR356.37mn and transactions by 7% to 4,374.
The market witnessed 2% fall in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 8.03mn equities but on 1% rise in value to QR145.21mn. Deals shrank 44% to 1,087.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds during the week.
