The transport, industrials, real estate and consumer goods counters on Thursday witnessed strong demand, leading the Qatar Stock Exchange to snap four days of bearish spell to surpass the 10,700 levels.

Foreign institutions were seen increasingly net buyers as the 20-stock Qatar Index settled 0.58% higher at 10,712.39 points.

Domestic institutions turned bullish in the market, whose sensitive index is up 4.01% year-to-date.

Market capitalisation expanded about QR5bn, or 0.79%, to QR615.87bn mainly owing to large and small cap segments.

Islamic equities were seen gaining slower than the other indices in the market, where the Gulf individuals had also turned bullish.

Trade turnover and volumes were on the increase in the bourse, where the banking and industrials sectors together accounted for more than 65% of the total volume.

The Total Return Index gained 0.58% to 18,874.04 points, the Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.47% to 2,503.73 points and the All Share Index by 0.71% to 3,233.1 points.

The transport index soared 1.79%, followed by industrials (1.74%), realty (1.53%), consumer goods (1.29%) and telecom (0.38%); while banks and financial services was down 0.09% and insurance 0.01%.

Major gainers included Qatar National Cement, Milaha, Ezdan, Industries Qatar, Woqod, Qatar Industrial Manufacturing, Ahlibank Qatar and Al Khaleej Takaful; whereas Doha Bank, Qatar Oman Investment, Qatari German Company for Medical Devices, Salam International Investment, Widam Food and Aamal Company were among the gainers.

Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying increased considerably to QR63.43mn compared to QR23.18mn on Wednesday.

Domestic institutions turned net buyers to the tune of QR15.98mn against net sellers of QR4.01mn the previous day.

Non-Qatari individuals were also net buyers to the extent of QR2.56mn compared with net sellers of QR0.63mn on January 23.

However, local individuals’ net selling grew significantly to QR72.73mn against QR17.69mn on Wednesday.

Gulf institutions’ net profit booking strengthened noticeably to QR7.45mn compared to QR0.3mn the previous day.

Gulf individual investors’ net selling shot up perceptibly to QR1.78mn against QR0.56mn on January 23.

Total trade volume rose 6% to 8.07mn shares, value by 75% to QR324.11mn and transactions by 26% to 5,953.

The consumer goods sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 0.46mn equities and value more than quadrupled to QR56.58mn on more-than-doubled deals to 935.

The telecom sector’s trade volume doubled to 0.5mn stocks and value more than quadrupled to QR28.6mn on more-than-doubled transactions to 580.

The industrials sector’s trade volume almost doubled to 2.61mn shares and value more than doubled to QR82.99mn on a 43% increase in deals to 1,925.

The transport sector’s trade volume soared 32% to 0.45mn equities to more than double value to QR15.93mn on a 24% growth in transactions to 292.

There was a 10% surge in the real estate sector’s trade volume to 1.09mn stocks and 31% in value to QR21.99mn but on a 17% fall in deals to 588.

The insurance sector’s trade volume was up 7% to 0.31mn shares, value by 42% to QR9.94mn and transactions by 42% to 235.

However, the banks and financial services sector saw a 36% shrinkage in trade volume to 2.66mn equities but on 7% jump in value to QR108.08mn despite 10% lower deals at 1,398.

In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.

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