The Qatar Stock Exchange, which remained in the positive trajectory for most part of the session, finally settled almost flat despite strong buying interests in consumer goods and telecom stocks.

Foreign institutions continued to be bullish but with much lesser intensity as the 20-stock Qatar Index closed 0.01% lower at 8,341.11 points.
Islamic equities saw faster declines in the bourse, whose year-to-date losses were at 20.08%.
Non-Qatari individuals turned bullish and there was substantially weakened net selling by domestic funds in the market, whose capitalisation grew 0.23% to QR454.87bn.
The market saw rather violent gyrations especially in the first 60 minutes of the session, and there after it kept gaining and losing intermittently, having touched a high of near 8,400 points. However, some strong selling especially in the last few minutes drove the index settle mere one point higher.
Trade turnover and volumes were on the decline in the bourse, where the banking and real estate sectors together accounted for more than 57% of the total volume.
The Total Return Index was down 0.01% to 13,987.55 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.07% to 3,338.3 points, while the All Share Index rose 0.17% to 2,344.72 points.
The consumer goods’ index gained 1.5%, followed by telecom (0.49%), banks and financial services (0.39%), transport (0.19%) and insurance (0.02%); whereas realty and industrials shrank 0.57% and 0.19% respectively.
Major movers included QNB, Al Khaliji, Qatar First Bank, Widam Food, Medicare Group, Qatar Industrial Manufacturing, Nakilat and Ooredoo; even as Qatar Islamic Bank, Commercial Bank, Doha Bank, Salam International Investment, Industries Qatar, Gulf International Services, Barwa, Mazaya Qatar, Ezdan, Vodafone Qatar and Gulf Warehousing were among the losers.
Non-Qatari individual investors turned net buyers to the tune of QR3.77mn compared with net sellers of QR0.81mn on October 12.
Domestic institutions’ net profit-booking weakened considerably to QR2.37mn against QR17.5mn last Thursday.
Local retail investors’ net selling also declined perceptibly to QR10.91mn compared to QR16.34mn the previous trading day.
However, GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) funds were net sellers to the extent of QR3.75mn against net buyers of QR2.72mn on October 12.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying weakened substantially to QR12.84mn compared to QR31.26mn last Thursday.
GCC retail investors’ net buying also declined marginally to QR0.41mn against QR0.66mn the previous trading day.
Total trade volume fell 56% to 3.34mn shares, value by 55% to QR92.97mn and deals by 41% to 1,548.
There was an 81% plunge in the insurance sector’s trade volume to 0.08mn equities, 81% in value to QR3.91mn and 9% in transactions to 78.
The transport sector’s trade volume plummeted 70% to 0.13mn stocks, value by 72% to QR2.71mn and deals by 65% to 99.
The banks and financial services sector saw a 61% shrinkage in trade volume to 1.24mn shares, 60% in value to QR44.46mn and 52% in transactions to 504.
The real estate sector’s trade volume tanked 61% to 0.67mn equities, value by 66% to QR8.1mn and deals by 52% to 192.
The telecom sector reported a 55% decline in trade volume to 0.19mn stocks, 39% in value to QR4.02mn and 34% in transactions to 130.
The industrials sector’s trade volume shrank 49% to 0.58mn shares, value by 38% to QR15.91mn and deals by 29% to 321.
However, the consumer goods sector’s trade volume soared 52% to 0.44mn equities, value by 29% to QR13.76mn and transactions 41% to 224.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.

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