The Qatar Stock Exchange on Monday witnessed substantially stronger buying by foreign institutions, even as the key barometer was in the negative trajectory for the third straight session.
Six of the seven sectors, notably telecom, real estate and insurance, saw stronger selling pressure as the 20-stock Qatar Index settled 0.23% lower at 9,203.32 points.
Masraf Al Rayan and Doha Bank sponsored exchange traded funds QATR and QETF saw 1.75% and 0.56% declines respectively.
Islamic stocks were however seen gaining amidst an overall bearish market, which is up 7.98% year-to-date.
Increased profit-booking by domestic funds and local retail investors was visible in the market, whose capitalisation declined 0.63% to QR508.08bn.
Trade turnover and volume were on the increase in the market, where the banking, transport and telecom sectors together accounted for more than 76% of the total volume.
The Total Return Index shed 0.23% to 16,215.23 points and the All Share Index by 0.6% to 2,692.77 points, while the Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) gained 0.13% to 2,243.91 points.
The telecom index shrank 1.44%, followed by realty (1.06%), insurance (1.05%), consumer goods (0.9%), banks and financial services (0.88%) and transport (0.21%); whereas industrials gained 0.68%.
About 61% of the stocks were in the red with major losers being Ooredoo, Mazaya Qatar, Ezdan, Qatar Insurance, QNB, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding and Doha Insurance; even as Industries Qatar, Dlala, Gulf International Services and Vodafone Qatar were among the gainers.
Domestic institutions’ net profit-booking grew significantly to QR83.62mn against QR25.51mn the previous day.
Local individual investors’ net selling increased sizably to QR39.07mn compared to QR18.08mn on June 10.
The Gulf institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR5.56mn against net buyers of QR3.92mn on Sunday.
The Gulf individuals’ net profit-booking rose marginally to QR0.75mn compared to QR0.22mn the previous day.
However, non-Qatari institutions’ net buying strengthened considerably to QR125.12mn against QR42.97mn on June 10.
Non-Qatari individual investors turned net buyers to the extent of QR3.93mn compared with net sellers of QR3.08mn on Sunday.
Total trade volume almost doubled to 9.8mn shares and value also almost doubled to QR467.39mn on a 72% growth in transactions to 5,386.
The transport sector’s trade volume grew more than eight-fold to 2.2mn equities and value by almost eight-fold to QR35.61mn on more-than-quadrupled deals to 841.
The telecom sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 1.92mn stocks and value soared 83% to QR22.11mn on a 33% jump in transactions to 329.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume almost doubled to 3.35mn shares and value more than doubled to QR312.04mn on a 67% increase in deals to 2,404.
The insurance sector reported a 38% surge in trade volume to 0.22mn equities and 28% in value to QR8.28mn on more-than-doubled transactions to 222.
The industrials sector’s trade volume shot up 13% to 1.04mn stocks to almost double value to QR53.25mn and more than double deals to 1,027.
There was a 9% expansion in the real estate sector’s trade volume to 0.74mn shares, 12% in value to QR9.46mn and 28% in transactions to 338.
However, the consumer goods sector’s trade volume plummeted 20% to 0.33mn equities, value by 51% to QR26.64mn and deals by 42% to 225.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.
