The Qatar Stock Exchange on Tuesday entered the third straight session of bearish spell on selling pressure, notably in banking, telecom and industrials counters, and its key index settled 46 points lower.

Non-Qatari individuals’ profit booking was rather instrumental in dragging the 20-stock Qatar Index 0.44% to 10,251.08 points.

A Kamco technical analysis suggests that medium-term and long-term investors can stay in the market with a stop-loss below 10,200 points and 9,700 points, respectively. The weakened buying interests of local retail investors also dampened the market, whose sensitive index is down 0.47% year-to-date.

Market capitalisation eroded about QR4bn or 0.63% to QR572.23bn mainly owing to mid and small cap segments.

Islamic equities were seen declining slower than the other indices on the market, where domestic funds were increasingly bullish.

Trade turnover and volumes were on the decline on the bourse, where industrials, banking and realty sectors together accounted for more than 85% of the total volume.

The Total Return Index shed 0.44% to 18,862.86 points, All Share Index by 0.43% to 3,110.67 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.25% to 2,335.38 points.

The banks and financial services index declined 0.72%, telecom (0.68%), industrials (0.63%) and transport (0.23%); whereas consumer goods gained 0.43%, real estate (0.32%) and insurance (0.09%).

Major losers included QNB, QIIB, Medicare Group, Qatar National Cement, Qatari Investors Group, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Ooredoo and Milaha; while Aamal Company, Mazaya Qatar, Nakilat, Al Khaliji and Qatar First Bank were among the prime gainers.

Non-Qatari individuals turned net sellers to the tune of QR5.81mn against net buyers of QR6.07mn on Monday.

Local retail investors’ net buying weakened noticeably to QR0.76mn compared to QR10.25mn on May 6.

However, domestic institutions’ net buying increased to QR14.42mn against QR11.99mn the previous day.

Non-Qatari institutions’ net selling declined significantly to QR7.38mn compared to QR21.92mn on Monday.

The Gulf institutions’ net profit booking decreased perceptibly to QR1.56mn against QR6.14mn on May 6.

The Gulf individual investors’ net selling was rather flat at QR0.27mn compared with the previous day.

Total trade volume fell 27% to 6.34mn shares, value by 36% to QR156.08mn and transactions by 23% to 3,429.

The insurance sector’s trade volume plummeted 90% to 0.02mn equities, value by 91% to QR0.63mn and deals by 46% to 68.

The market witnessed 50% plunge in the consumer goods sector’s trade volume to 0.16mn stocks, 66% in value to QR14.58mn and 55% in transactions to 161.

The telecom sector’s trade volume tanked 49% to 0.38mn shares and value by 44% to QR5.71mn, whereas deals were up 4% to 258.

The banks and financial services sector saw 32% shrinkage in trade volume to 1.53mn equities, 19% in value to QR72.63mn and 28% in transactions to 759.

The industrials sector’s trade volume shrank 31% to 2.39mn stocks, value by 46% to QR36.2mn and deals by 30% to 1,213.

There was 4% fall in the realty sector’s trade volume to 1.5mn shares and 26% in value to QR17.26mn but on 9% growth in transactions to 813.

However, the transport sector’s trade volume surged 76% to 0.37mn equities and value by 66% to QR9.09mn, while deals tanked 26% to 157.

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