Snapping three days of bullish run, the Qatar Stock Exchange on Thursday closed the week weak with its key index shedding 106 points to settle well below 10,600 levels.
The banking and consumer goods counters witnessed higher than average selling pressure, leading to a 1% decline in the 20-stock Qatar Index to 10,515.88 points.
Gulf institutions turned bearish and foreign funds’ buying interests substantially weakened in the market, whose key benchmark settled 2.11% higher year-to-date.
Market capitalisation eroded 1.54%, or more than QR9bn, to QR577.82bn mainly owing to small and microcap segments.
Islamic equities were seen declining slower than the other indices in the market, where domestic institutions, however, turned net buyers.
Trade turnover and volume were on the decline in the bourse, where the banking sector alone accounted for more than 66% of the total volume.
The Total Return Index declined 1% to 19,350.11 points, the All Share Index by 1.34% to 3,098.67 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.78% to 2,401.01 points.
The banks and financial services index tanked 2.35%, consumer goods (1.55%), insurance (0.51%), realty (0.35%), industrials (0.13%) and transport (0.1%); whereas telecom gained 0.17%.
About 58% of the traded stocks were in the red with major losers being QNB, Masraf Al Rayan, QIIB, Alijarah Holding, Gulf Warehousing, Dlala, Medicare Group, Salam International Investment and Woqod; even as Qatari German Company for Medical Devices, Gulf International Services, Commercial Bank and Doha Bank were among the prime gainers.
Gulf institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR3.12mn against net buyers of QR1.37mn on Wednesday.
Gulf individuals’ net profit booking increased noticeably to QR1.38mn compared to QR0.6mn the previous day.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying weakened significantly to QR50.92mn against QR100.26mn on June 12.
However, domestic funds turned net buyers to the extent of QR10.48mn compared with net sellers of QR36.66mn on Wednesday.
Local retail investors’ net profit booking declined perceptibly to QR55.92mn against QR59.01mn the previous day.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net selling declined considerably to QR0.95mn compared to QR5.36mn on June 12.
Total trade volume fell 23% to 19.97mn shares and value by 2% to QR328.54mn, while transactions rose 17% to 7,591.
The insurance sector’s trade volume plummeted 55% to 0.15mn equities and value by 59% to QR4.5mn, while deals were up 10% to 196.
The industrials sector reported a 44% plunge in trade volume to 1.8mn stocks and 32% in value to QR61.91mn but on 8% growth in transactions to 2,113.
The telecom sector’s trade volume tanked 41% to 0.54mn shares, whereas value increased 63% to QR17.57mn and deals by 94% to 682.
The banks and financial services sector saw a 22% shrinkage in trade volume to 13.24mn equities but on a 14% jump in value to QR151.39mn and 12% in transactions to 2,388.
The real estate sector’s trade volume shrank 15% to 2.73mn stocks, value by 21% to QR26.54mn and deals by 24% to 785.
There was a 4% fall in the consumer goods sector’s trade volume to 1.34mn shares but on a 14% expansion in value to QR62.45mn and 80% in transactions to 1,250.
However, the transport sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 0.17mn equities and value almost doubled to QR4.18mn on a 42% growth in deals to 177.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.
