The Qatar Stock Exchange on Thursday continued to remain under bearish spell mainly on increased net selling by local retail investors and foreign funds’ bearish outlook.
Selling pressure – especially within insurance, telecom, industrials and consumer goods – dragged the 20-stock Qatar Index 0.29% to 9,420.67 points.
Doha Bank and Masraf Al Rayan sponsored exchange traded funds QETF and QATR witnessed 8.6% and 2.46% declines respectively.
The Islamic stocks were seen declining faster than the other indices on the market, which nevertheless reported 10.53% year-to-date gains.
However, domestic and Gulf institutions were increasingly bullish on the bourse, whose capitalisation was down 0.21% to QR512.44bn, mainly owing to large caps.
Trade turnover and volumes were on the decline in the market, where banking, telecom and real estate sectors together accounted for about 78% of the total volume.
The Total Return Index fell 0.29% to 16,598.18 points, All Share Index by 0.24% to 2,712.07 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.31% to 2,319.41 points.
The insurance index shrank 0.76%, telecom (0.59%), industrials (0.49%), consumer goods (0.33%), realty (0.12%) and banks and financial services (0.07%); while transport was largely unchanged.
Major losers included Qatar Insurance, Milaha, Qatar Islamic Bank, Doha Bank, QIIB, Qatar First Bank, Alijarah Holding, Widam Food, Ezdan, Qatari Investors Group, Qatar Electricity and Water, Industries Qatar, United Development Company and Ooredoo; while Commercial Bank, Ahlibank, Dlala, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Mazaya Qatar and Nakilat were among the gainers.
Local individual investors’ net selling increased substantially to QR34.44mn compared to QR20.15mn on July 18.
Non-Qatari institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR10.2mn against net buyers of QR2.59mn on Wednesday.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net buying declined marginally to QR2.5mn compared to QR2.99mn the previous day.
However, domestic institutions’ net buying strengthened significantly to QR36.67mn against QR3.42mn on July 18.
The Gulf institutions’ net buying shot up perceptibly to QR5.68mn compared to QR1.46mn on Wednesday.
The Gulf individual investors’ net profit booking fell marginally to QR0.22mn against QR0.31mn the previous day.
Total trade volume fell 8% to 5.75mn shares and value by 34% to QR155.19mn, while transactions rose 7% at 2,764.
The insurance sector’s trade volume plummeted 66% to 0.14mn equities, value by 66% to QR5.08mn and deals by 59% to 70.
The consumer goods sector reported 57% plunge in trade volume to 0.18mn stocks, 68% in value to QR13.05mn and 39% in transactions to 246.
The telecom sector’s trade volume tanked 42% to 1.3mn shares and value by 24% to QR17.7mn, whereas deals gained 46% to 296.
However, there was 62% surge in the transport sector’s trade volume to 0.42mn equities, 35% in value to QR7.78mn and 3% in transactions to 228.
The industrials sector’s trade volume soared 42% to 0.54mn stocks, value by 90% to QR24.64mn and deals by 34% to 560.
The banks and financial services sector saw 34% surge in trade volume to 2.03mn shares but on 46% shrinkage in value to QR67.98mn despite 10% higher transactions at 864.
The real estate sector’s trade volume expanded 13% to 1.14mn equities, value by 69% to QR18.96mn and deals by 30% to 500.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.
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