Foreign funds and Gulf individuals turn bearish on Qatar bourse

Strong profit booking pressure, notably at the banking, industrials and insurance counters, yesterday drove the Qatar Stock Exchange’s main barometer below 10,300 levels and capitalisation eroded about QR5bn.
Foreign funds and the Gulf individuals were seen bearish as the 20-stock Qatar Index closed 0.75% or 77 points lower at 10,226.15 points.
However, domestic institutions were increasingly bullish on the market, whose key benchmark is down 0.71% year-to-date.
Market capitalisation saw 0.84% decline to QR564.32bn mainly owing to large and small cap segments.
Islamic equities were seen declining slower than the other indices on the market, where local retail investors turned bullish.
Trade turnover and volumes were on the increase on the bourse, where banking and industrials sectors together accounted for about 73% of the total volume.
The Total Return Index shrank 0.75% to 18,816.98 points, All Share Index by 0.82% to 3,015.65 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.58% to 2,289.85 points.
The banks and financial services index tanked 1.03%, industrials (0.91%), insurance (0.81%), real estate (0.53%), consumer goods (0.2%) and telecom (0.14%); whereas transport gained 0.16%.
More than 51% of the traded constituents were in the red with major losers being QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank, Doha Bank, Industries Qatar, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Qatari Investors Group, Qatar Electricity and Water, Al Khaleej Takaful, Ooredoo and Gulf Warehousing; even as Commercial Bank, Alijarah Holding, Qatari German Company for Medical Devices, Gulf International Services, Vodafone Qatar and Mazaya Qatar were among the gainers.
Non-Qatari institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR34.04mn compared with net buyers of QR6.68mn on Monday.
The Gulf individuals were also net sellers to the extent of QR1.41mn against net buyers of QR0.38mn on November 11.
The Gulf institutions’ net buying weakened noticeably to QR4.86mn compared to QR8mn the previous day.
However, domestic institutions’ net buying increased substantially to QR22.8mn against QR5.41mn on Monday.
Local retail investors turned net buyers to the tune of QR4.86mn compared with net sellers of QR21.43mn on November 11.
Non-Qatari individuals’ net buying expanded perceptibly to QR2.92mn against QR0.97mn the previous day.
Total trade volume rose 21% to 86.1mn shares, value by 8% to QR255.92mn and transactions by 14% to 7,227.
The consumer goods sector’s trade volume almost tripled to 5.14mn equities, value soared 68% to QR14.44mn and deals by 62% to 573.
The insurance’s sector reported 51% surge in trade volume to 1.48mn stocks and 49% in value to QR3.89mn but on 2% fall in transactions to 173.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume shot up 29% to 32.36mn shares, value by 1% to QR161.59mn and deals by 13% to 3,254.
The telecom sector saw 22% expansion in trade volume to 3.38mn equities, 23% in value to QR12.32mn and 61% in transactions to 794.
The industrials’ sector’s trade volume jumped 19% to 30.19mn stocks and value by 32% to QR46.75mn, while deals were down 7% to 1,602.
However, there was 18% plunge in the transport sector’s trade volume to 1.6mn shares and 23% in value to QR5.49mn but on 7% gains in transactions to 283.
The real estate sector’s trade volume shrank 12% to 11.94mn equities and value by 9% to QR11.43mn, while deals grew 16% to 546.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.