The perception of reduced risks and boost in sentiments due to opening of Qatar and Saudi border coupled with coincident passive inflows due to MSCI emerging market index rebalancing on Tuesday helped the Qatar Stock Exchange gain 141 points in key index and QR8bn in capitalisation.

An across the board buying – especially in transport, banks and insurance – lifted the 20-stock Qatar Index 1.35% to 10,618.39 points, although it touched an intraday high of 10,670 points.

About 72% of the traded constituents extended gains to investors in the market, which is up 1.75% year-to-date.

Akber Khan, senior director (Asset Management Group), Al Rayan Investment, said the market jump at the open reflected the long awaited good news but then prices softened over the day.

Coincidentally, the market also benefited from passive inflows due to a rebalancing of the MSCI emerging market index.

Talal F Samhouri, portfolio manager of Aventicum Capital Management, is of the view that the beginning of the normalisation of relations has “significantly” reduced the risks; thereby leading to improved valuation of the Qatari stocks, which are even otherwise cheapest in the region.

Foreign and Gulf funds as well as Arab individuals were seen net buyers on the bourse, whose capitalisation gained 1.38% to QR613.57bn, mainly on large and small cap segments.

Trade turnover and volumes were on the increase on the market, where the industrials sector alone accounted for more than 52% of the total trading volume.

Islamic equities were seen gaining much slower than the other indices on the bourse, which saw local retail investors were increasingly net sellers.

A total of 658,356 exchange traded funds (Masraf Al Rayan sponsored QATR and Doha Bank sponsored QETF) valued at QR2.09mn changed hands across 79 deals; while on the debt market, there was no trading of sovereign bonds and treasury bills.

The Total Return Index gained 1.35% to 20,413.51 points, Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 0.79% to 2,423.31 points and All Share Index by 1.34% to 3,259.93 points.

The transport index surged 1.94%, banks and financial services (1.74%), insurance (1.45%), industrials (0.99%), telecom (0.6%), realty (0.31%) and consumer goods and services (0.05%).

Major gainers included Nakilat, Qatar Insurance, QNB, Qatar Islamic Insurance, Qatar Electricity and Water, Qatar Islamic Bank, Commercial Bank, Qatar First Bank, Inma Holding, Qatari Investors Group, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding and Qamco; even as Qatar General Insurance and Reinsurance, Al Meera, Gulf International Services and Widam Food were among the losers.

The foreign institutions turned net buyers to the tune of QR79.1mn against net sellers of QR10.27mn on January 4.

The Arab individuals were net buyers to the extent of QR26.37mn compared with net sellers of QR8.23mn on Monday.

The Gulf institutions were net buyers to the tune of QR8.98mn against net sellers of QR0.93mn the previous day.

The foreign individuals’ net buying increased notably to QR3.88mn compared to QR2.26mn on January 4.

The Gulf individuals were net buyers to the extent of QR1.68mn against net sellers of QR1.69mn on Monday.

However, Qataris’ net selling grew significantly to QR107.41mn compared to QR12.21mn the previous day.

The domestic institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR11.83mn against net buyers of QR31.12mn on January 4.

The Arab funds were seen net profit takers to the extent of QR0.84mn compared with no major exposure on Monday.

Total trade volume more than tripled to 370.3mn shares and value almost tripled to QR646.27mn on more than doubled transactions to 12,104.

The industrials sector’s trade volume grew almost 10-fold to 193.63mn equities and value by more than five-fold to QR158.46mn on more than tripled deals to 2,782.

The transport sector’s trade volume rose more than five-fold to 14.13mn stocks and value by also more than five-fold to QR58.88mn on more than quadrupled transactions to 1,386.

The insurance sector’s trade volume almost quadrupled to 6.52mn shares and value more than quadrupled to QR16.19mn on 76% growth in deals to 284.

The consumer goods and services sector’s trade volume almost tripled to 57.55mn equities and value more than doubled to QR93.75mn on more than doubled transactions to 1,545.

The realty sector’s trade volume almost tripled to 45.61mn stocks and value more than tripled to QR76.81mn on more than doubled deals to 1,628.

The telecom sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 6.11mn shares and value also more than doubled to QR23.18mn on 70% increase in transactions to 766.

The banks and financial services sector saw 15% expansion in trade volume to 46.76mn equities, 68% in value to QR219mn and 82% in deals to 3,713.


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