Qatar bourse gains 69 points on strong buying interests

Qatar Stock Exchange, which on Thursday witnessed unusually high trading turnover and volumes, closed in the positive trajectory with its key index gaining 69 points and about QR4bn in capitalisation.
Reflecting the FTSE Russell’s doubling of investible weights in 20 of the 22 stocks and the 25 basis points increase in the US Federal Reserve, the 20-stock Qatar Index rose 0.67% to 10,361.03 points, after remaining under bearish spell for the last three days.
In view of the Qatar Central Bank’s 0.25% hike interest rates, the banking stocks particularly witnessed substantial buying interests in the market, whose year-to-date losses were contained at 0.73%.
Foreign institutions’ substantially strengthened buying interests lifted the bourse, where Islamic stocks were seen outperforming the main index and other indices.
However, domestic institutions and local retail investors turned net profit takers.
Amidst frenzied trading activities, banking, real estate and industrials sectors together accounted for more than 67% of the total volumes.
Market capitalisation gained 0.66% to QR556.14bn.
The Total Return Index rose 0.79% to 17,142.38 points, All Share Index by 0.81% to 2,910.82 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.88% to 4,094.61 points.
The banks and financial services sector saw its index expand 1.71%, insurance (1.19%), industrials (0.52%) and telecom (0.18%); whereas transport declined 0.59%, realty (0.19%) and consumer goods (0.02%).
More than 51% of the stocks extended gains with major mover being QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank, Commercial Bank, Doha Bank, Masraf Al Rayan, Qatar Islamic Insurance, Vodafone Qatar, Qatari Investors Group, Qatar Electricity and Water, Gulf International Services and Medicare Group.
Nevertheless, among the losers were Qatar First Bank, Milaha, Nakilat, Qatar Insurance, Industries Qatar, United Development Company, Qatari German Company for Medical Devices, Dlala and Alijarah Holding.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying rose significantly to QR1.01bn compared to QR35.05mn the previous day.
However, domestic institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR572.19mn against net buyers of QR111.27mn on March 15.
Local retail investors were also net profit takers to the extent of QR219.5mn compared with net buyers of QR7.04mn on Wednesday.
The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) institutions’ net selling increased substantially to QR194.44mn against QR156.48mn the previous day.
Non-Qatari individual investors turned net sellers to the tune of QR18.53mn compared with net buyers of QR2.26mn on March 15.
The GCC retail investors were also net profit takers to the extent of QR0.65mn against net buyers of QR0.85mn on Wednesday.
Total trade volumes almost quadrupled to 48.01mn shares and value more than quadrupled to QR2.18bn on 87% increase in deals to 9,676.
The transport sector’s trade volume grew almost 17-fold to 5.57 equities and value also by about 17-fold to QR184.4mn on almost tripled transactions to 674.
The insurance sector’s trade volume rose more than eight-fold to 2.47mn stocks and value by more than nine-fold to QR178.01mn on almost doubled deals to 487.
The industrials sector’s trade volume rose almost six-fold to 8.12mn shares and value more than quadrupled to QR495.32mn on more than doubled transactions to 2,118.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 14.09mn equities and value more than quadrupled to QR859.31mn on 87% jump in deals to 3,496.
The real estate sector’s trade volume almost tripled to 10.18mn stocks and value more than doubled to QR219.19mn on 32% expansion in transactions to 1,322.
The telecom sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 6.7mn shares and value almost tripled to QR191.61mn on 51% surge in deals to 745.
The consumer goods sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 0.89mm equities, value soared 51% in value to QR51.93mn and transactions by 59% to 834.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.