The Qatar Stock Exchange surged 341 points, its largest single-day gains in nine months, to inch near 10,300 levels, and capitalisation expanded more than QR18bn, mainly powered by blue chips.

An across-the-board buying, particularly in the banking and real estate counters, led the 20-stock Qatar Index to soar 3.43% to 10,273.01 points.

Foreign institutions turned bullish and their Gulf counterparts were increasingly net buyers in the market, whose year-to-date losses were trimmed substantially to 0.25%.

Market capitalisation gained 3.32% to QR568.08bn mainly owing to large, mid and small cap segments.

Islamic equities were seen gaining slower than the main index in the market, where domestic funds and non-Qatari individuals turned net profit takers.

Trade turnover and volumes were on the increase in the bourse, where realty alone accounted for more than 57% of the total volume.

The Total Return Index soared 3.43% to 18,903.2 points, the All Share Index by 3.45% to 3,046.22 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 2.69% to 2,345.16 points.

The banks and financial services index zoomed 4.39%, real estate (3.52%), transport (3.28%), insurance (2.69%), industrials (2.31%), consumer goods (1.75%) and telecom (1.56%).

About 80% of the traded constituents extended gains with major gainers being QNB, Industries Qatar, Ooredoo, Qatar Insurance, Commercial Bank, Doha Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, QIIB, Al Khaliji, Masraf Al Rayan, Nakilat, Gulf Warehousing, Ezdan, Barwa and Mazaya Qatar; even as Dlala, Zad Holding and Qatari German Company for Medical Devices were among the losers.

Non-Qatari institutions turned net buyers to the tune of QR117.36mn against net sellers of QR4.95mn on Wednesday.

Gulf institutions’ net buying increased noticeably to QR5.77mn compared to QR4.63mn the previous day.

Gulf individual investors’ net profit booking weakened marginally to QR0.15mn against QR2mn on May 29.

However, local retail investors’ net selling increased significantly to QR58.14mn compared to QR10.42mn on Wednesday.

Domestic institutions turned net sellers to the extent of QR52.53mn against net buyers of QR12.69mn the previous day.

Non-Qatari individuals were also net profit takers to the tune of QR12.31mn compared with net buyers of QR0.04mn on May 29.

Total trade volume grew 49% to 36.61mn shares, value by 93% to QR769.08mn and transactions by 27% to 17,973.

The insurance sector’s trade volume more than quadrupled to 0.45mn equities and value more than tripled to QR12.67mn on more-than-doubled deals to 310.

The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume almost tripled to 6.05mn stocks and value more than tripled to QR312.06mn on more-than- doubled transactions to 3,356.

The telecom sector’s trade volume almost tripled to 1.97mn shares and value grew more than six-fold to QR34.7mn on more-than-quadrupled deals to 772.

The transport sector’s trade volume almost doubled to 0.92mn equities and value more than doubled to QR22.24mn on a 23% increase in transactions to 331.

The consumer goods sector reported a 61% surge in trade volume to 0.79mn stocks and less than 1% in value to QR48.53mn but on a 51% shrinkage in deals to 614.

The industrials sector’s trade volume soared 50% to 5.58mn shares, value by 60% to QR164.51mn and transactions by 42% to 2,747.

There was a 22% expansion in the realty sector’s trade volume to 20.85mn equities, 38% in value to QR174.37mn and 13% in deals to 9,843.

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