Qatar shares extend gains to 2nd day

The Qatar Stock Exchange continued to make huge gains for the second straight session to surpass 10,600 levels yesterday, mainly on the back of strong buying interests of foreign funds, a day after Doha decided to opt out of the oil grouping.

An across-the-board buying, particularly in real estate, led the 20-stock Qatar Index to settle 1.45% higher at 10,602.84 points.

The weakened selling pressure from domestic funds and non-Qatari individuals also helped the market, which is up 24.4% year-to-date.

Market capitalisation expanded about QR5bn, or 0.81%, to QR595.59bn, mainly owing to mid and large cap segments.

Islamic equities were seen gaining faster than the other indices in the market, where local retail investors were increasingly net sellers and Gulf funds turned bearish.

Trade turnover and volumes were on the increase in the bourse, where the banks, realty and telecom sectors together accounted for more than 79% of the total volume.

The Total Return Index gained 1.45% to 18,681.03 points, the All Share Index by 1.06% to 3,143.25 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index (Price) by 1.84% to 2,452.6 points.

The real estate index soared 1.86%, followed by banks and fi- nancial services (1.1%), industrials (0.92%), telecom (0.86%), transport (0.72%), consumer goods (0.52%) and insurance (0.15%).

About 63% of the traded stocks extended gains with major movers being Barwa, Ezdan, Mazaya Qatar, Vodafone Qatar, Doha Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Masraf Al Rayan, QIIB, Industries Qatar, Gulf International Services and Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding; even as QNB, Ooredoo, Aamal Company, Qatar National Cement and Qatar Oman Investment were among the losers.

Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying increased significantly to QR121.04mn compared to QR83.56mn on December 3.

Domestic institutions’ net selling declined perceptibly to QR9.71mn against QR12.32mn the previous day.

Non-Qatari individuals’ net profit booking shrank influentially to QR5.9mn compared to QR7.23mn on Monday.

However, local individuals’ net selling strengthened significantly to QR82mn against QR66.87mn on December 3.

The Gulf institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR20.42mn compared with net buyers of QR4.46mn the previous day.

The Gulf individual investors’ net profit booking grew considerably to QR3.9mn against QR1.6mn on Monday.

Total trade volume rose 47% to 11.42mn shares, value by 24% to QR373.36mn and transactions by 26% to 6,445.

The telecom sector’s trade volume grew more than five-fold to 2.5mn equities and value almost tripled to QR25.32mn on almost doubled deals to 505.

The industrials sector’s trade volume soared 79% to 1.13mn stocks, value by 70% to QR66.18mn and transactions by 69% to 995.

The transport sector reported 36% surge in trade volume to 0.94mn shares and 48% in value to QR21.45mnm but on 5% fall in deals to 317.

The insurance sector’s trade volume expanded 27% to 0.14mn equities and value by 24% to QR5.25mn but on 29% decline in transactions to 119.

The banks and financial services sector saw 27% increase in trade volume to 4.02mn stocks, 11% in value to QR180.72mn and 42% in deals to 2,743.

The real estate sector’s trade volume was up 1% to 2.52mn shares, value by 18% to QR58.41mn and transactions by 5% to 1,537.

However, there was 6% decline in the consumer goods sector’s trade volume to 0.16mn shares, 29% in value to QR16.03mn and 36% in deals to 229.

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

Noushad Thekkayil PICTURE: An across-the-board buying, particularly in real estate shares, led the 20-stock Qatar Index to settle 1.45% higher at 10,602.84 points yesterday.