The Qatar Stock Exchange on Tuesday gained for the fourth straight session to surpass 10,600 levels mainly on sustained buying interests from foreign funds.

An across-the-board buying, particularly within insurance and industrials, led the 20-stock Qatar Index settle 0.65% or 69 points higher at 10,636.7 points, amidst weakened trading environment.

The weakened net selling by local retail investors and domestic institutions were seen helping the market, which is up 2.03% year-to-date.

Market capitalisation saw about QR3bn or 0.51% increase to QR591.59bn mainly owing to small and microcap segments.

Islamic stocks were seen gaining slower than the main barometer on the bourse, where non-Qatari retail investors were increasingly bearish.

Trade turnover and volumes were on the decline on the bourse, where banking, real estate and industrials sectors together accounted for about 79% of the total volume.

The Total Return Index rose 0.65% to 19,572.43 points, All Share Index by 0.56% to 3,158.41 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.57% to 2,335.27 points.

The insurance index gained 1.04%, industrials (0.9%), telecom (0.63%), consumer goods (0.52%), banks and financial services (0.47%), transport (0.27%) and realty (0.12%).

More than 59% of the traded stocks extended gains with major movers being Qatar Islamic Bank, Woqod, Industries Qatar, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Qatar Industrial Manufacturing, Qatari Investors Group, Qatar Insurance, Al Khaleej Takaful, Vodafone Qatar and Nakilat; even as Salam International Investment, Doha Bank, Dlala, QIIB and Gulf Warehousing were among the losers.

Non-Qatari funds’ net buying increased marginally to QR72.33mn compared to QR71.19mn on January 13.

Local retail investors’ net selling weakened noticeably to QR38.81mn against QR40.22mn on Monday.

Domestic institutions’ net selling also declined perceptibly to QR25.21mn compared to QR26.29mn the previous day.

The Gulf institutions’ net profit booking shrank influentially to QR1.83mn against QR3.31mn on January 13.

The Gulf individual investors’ net selling fell marginally to QR0.49mn compared to QR1.1mn on Monday.

However, non-Qatari individuals’ net selling grew perceptibly to QR9.52mn against QR6.92mn the previous day.

Total trade volumes fell 37% to 75.24mn shares, value by 14% to QR258.06mn and transactions by 29% to 4,204.

The transport sector’s trade volume plummeted 72% to 2.69mn equities and value by 75% to QR9.22mn, while deals grew 18% to 255.

There was 49% plunge in the consumer goods sector’s trade volume to 4.7mn stocks, 44% in value to QR13.57mn and 70% in transactions to 396.

The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume tanked 49% to 24.81mn shares, value by 3% to QR151.8mn and deals by 25% to 1,738.

The real estate sector reported 45% shrinkage in trade volume to 10.6mn equities, 26% in value to QR15.78mn and 45% in transactions to 275.

The industrials sector’s trade volume shrank 19% to 24.01mn stocks, whereas value rose less than 1% to QR44.97mn despite 3% lower deals at 954.

However, the telecom sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 5.71mn shares and value shot up 30% to QR14.89mn, whereas transactions were down 5% to 466.

The insurance sector’s trade volume almost doubled to 2.72mn equities and value more than doubled to QR7.84mn on 1% rise in deals to 120.

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


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