Substantially weakened buying interests from foreign and Gulf funds led the Qatar Stock Exchange to settle below 10,300 levels on Thursday.
The insurance, industrials, banking and real estate counters witnessed higher-than-average profit booking, leading the 20-stock Qatar Index to shed 0.19% to 10,280.96 points, which is up 20.62% year-to-date.
Market capitalisation eroded about QR2bn, or 0.34%, to QR578.52bn, mainly dragged by large and small cap equities.
However, domestic funds and non-Qatari individuals turned bullish in the market, where Islamic stocks were seen declining slower than the other indices.
Trade turnover and volumes were on the decline in the bourse, where the banking and realty sectors together accounted for more than 59% of the total volume.
The Total Return Index fell 0.19% to 18,113.91 points, the All Share Index by 0.31% to 3,034.66 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.07% to 2,399.69 points.
The insurance index declined 0.87%, followed by industrials (0.42%), banks and financial services (0.37%), real estate (0.31%) and telecom (0.04%); while transport and consumer goods gained 0.4% and 0.08% respectively.
More than 51% of the traded stocks were in the red with major losers being Qatar Electricity and Water, Qatar Insurance, Commercial Bank, Ezdan, Milaha, Salam International Investment and QNB; even as Nakilat, Barwa, Qatari Investors Group and Mazaya Qatar were among the gainers.
Non-Qatari funds’ net buying declined significantly to QR17.21mn compared to QR75.09mn the previous day.
Gulf institutions’ net buying also weakened considerably to QR1.17mn against QR21.91mn on November 1.
However, non-Qatari individuals turned net buyers to the tune of QR4.19mn compared with net sellers of QR3.3mn on Wednesday.
Domestic funds were also net buyers to the extent of QR3.94mn against net sellers of QR7.72mn in the previous day.
Gulf individual investors’ net buying increased perceptibly to QR0.6mn against QR0.3mn on November 1.
Local individuals’ net selling weakened substantially to QR27.11mn against QR86.3mn on Wednesday.
Total trade volume fell 44% to 4.06mn shares, value by 59% to QR135.73mn and transactions by 17% to 3,129.
The insurance sector’s trade volume plummeted 88% to 0.03mn equities, value by 91% to QR0.77mn and deals by 67% at 39.
The telecom sector reported a 69% plunge in trade volume to 0.33mn stocks, 77% in value to QR6.06mn and 43% in transactions to 226.
The industrials sector’s trade volume tanked 68% to 0.5mn shares, value by 79% to QR17.6mn and deals by 37% to 604.
The banks and financial services sector saw a 47% shrinkage in trade volume to 1.44mn equities, 64% in value to QR61.61mn and 24% in transactions to 1,02100.
The real estate sector’s trade volume declined 20% to 0.96mn stocks, whereas value gained 84% to QR31.58mn and deals by 11% to 468.
However, the consumer goods sector’s trade volume doubled to 0.28mn shares, while value shrank 52% to QR6.23mn and transactions by 26% to 175.
There was a 25% jump in the transport sector’s trade volume to 0.5mn equities and 18% in value to QR11.88mn on more-than-doubled deals to 596.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.
