An across-the-board buying on Wednesday gave a huge 236 points thrust to the Qatar Stock Exchange, which overcame the three days of bearish spell to settle near 8,900 levels.
Foreign investors turned substantially bullish, thus lifting the 20-stock Qatar Index by 2.73% to 8,887.74 points.
Non-Qatari individuals were also increasingly net buyers in the bourse, which is up 4.27% year-to-date.
Buying was seen robust within large and midcap segments in the market, whose capitalisation expanded 2.7% to QR478.82bn.
More than 86% of the stocks extended gains in the bourse, where domestic funds and local retail investors turned bearish.
Islamic stocks were seen gaining slower than the other indices in the bourse, which also saw weakened net buying support from Gulf institutions.
Trade turnover and volumes were on the increase in the market, where the banking, real estate and industrials sectors together accounted for more than 78% of the total volume.
The Total Return Index gained 2.73% to 14,904.22 points, the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 2.06% to 3,555.25 points and the All Share Index by 2.79% to 2,477.71 points.
The telecom index soared 4.28%, followed by transport (3.73%), realty (3.61%), insurance (2.89%), industrials (2.75%), banks and financial services (2.35%) and consumer goods (1.61%).
Major gainers included Ooredoo, Qatar Insurance, Industries Qatar, QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank, Commercial Bank, Doha Bank, Qatari Investors Group, Qatar Electricity and Water, Aamal Company, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Ezdan, Mazaya Qatar, Barwa, Vodafone Qatar, Nakilat and Gulf Warehousing; while Al Khaliji, Widam Food and Gulf International Services were among the losers.
Non-Qatari funds turned net buyers to the tune of QR69.2mn compared with net sellers of QR37.82mn on February 6.
Non-Qatari retail investors’ net buying grew marginally to QR2.62mn against QR1.93mn the previous day.
Gulf individual investors’ net profit-booking weakened perceptibly to QR0.03mn compared to QR0.27mn on Tuesday.
However, domestic funds turned net sellers to the extent of QR43.7mn against net buyers of QR4.84mn on February 6.
Local individuals were also net sellers to the tune of QR31.99mn compared with net buyers of QR26.74mn the previous day.
Gulf institutions’ net buying weakened influentially to QR3.87mn against QR4.57mn on Tuesday.
Total trade volume rose 2% to 13.1mn shares, value by 8% to QR319.92mn and transactions by 2% to 5,403.
The market witnessed a 42% surge in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 1.53mn equities, 58% in value to QR32.34mn and 31% in deals to 563.
The industrials sector’s trade volume soared 32% to 2.54mn stocks, while value shrank 8% to QR60.08mn and transactions by 1% to 1,182.
The banks and financial services sector saw a 25% increase in trade volume to 4.49mn shares and 17% in value to QR130.84mn but on a 4% fall in deals to 1,588.
The real estate sector’s trade volume expanded 16% to 3.2mn equities, value by 28% to QR62.25n and transactions by 30% to 1,314.
However, the consumer goods sector reported a 66% plunge in trade volume to 0.95mn stocks, 23% in value to QR21.51mn and 14% in deals to 416.
The insurance sector’s trade volume plummeted 50% to 0.06mn shares, value by 43% to QR2.93mn and transactions by 33% to 85.
There was a 40% shrinkage in the transport sector’s trade volume to 0.32mn equities, 41% in value to QR9.98mn and 34% in deals to 255.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills; whereas as many as 25,000 sovereign bonds valued at QR248.75mn changed hands across two transactions.
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