By Santhosh V. Perumal/Business Reporter

Qatar Stock Exchange was back in the negative terrain on Monday as its key index lost 50 points, mainly dragged by insurance and banking stocks.
Both foreign and Gulf institutions continued to be bearish but with lesser intensity as the 20-stock Qatar Index fell 0.46% to 10,810.37 points amid a marginal increase in overall volumes.
The Gulf retail investors turned bearish and there was also lower buying interests of domestic institutions in the market, which is down 12.01% year-to-date.
The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks was seen declining slower than the other indices in the bourse, where trading was largely skewed towards the transport, banking and real estate sectors, which together constituted more than 70% of the volume.
Market capitalisation fell 0.41% or more than QR2bn to QR568.63bn with small, mid, large and micro cap equities losing 0.78%, 0.61%, 0.5% and 0.11% respectively.
The Total Return Index shed 0.46% to 16,803.17 points, All Share Index by 0.48% to 2,882.63 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.16% to 4,061.33 points.
Insurance stocks plummeted 4.31%, banks and financial services (1.02%) and realty (0.26%); whereas telecom gained 1.01%, consumer goods (0.65%), industrials (0.58%) and transport (0.26%).
Major losers included QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank, Commercial Bank, Masraf Al Rayan, Qatar Insurance, Qatar General Insurance, Ezdan and Gulf Warehousing; even as Industries Qatar, Ooredoo, Vodafone Qatar, Aamal Company, Gulf International Services, Barwa, Mazaya Qatar, United Development Company and Nakilat bucked the trend.
Domestic institutions’ net buying weakened to QR35.11mn compared to QR63.96mn on November 15.
The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) individual investors turned net sellers to the tune of QR1.35mn against net buyers of QR0.93mn on Sunday.
However, non-Qatari institutions’ net selling fell to QR25.75mn compared to QR27.14mn the previous day.
The GCC institutions’ net selling also weakened to QR13.13mn against QR24.96mn on November 15.
Local retail investors’ net profit booking declined to QR1.75mn compared to QR9.08mn on Sunday.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net buying increased to QR6.89mn against QR3.72mn the previous day.
Total trade volume rose 6% to 5.76mn shares and value by 4% to QR224.47mn, while deals were down 5% to 3,214.
The insurance sector’s trade volume tripled to 0.09mn equities and value more than tripled to QR7.51mn on more than doubled transactions to 100.
The banks and financial services sector reported 53% surge in trade volume to 1.41mn stocks, 38% in value to QR82.58mn and 39% in deals to 926.
The transport sector’s trade volume expanded 25% to 1.64mn shares and value by 36% to QR46.49mn, while transactions fell less than 1% to 539.
However, the market witnessed 43% plunge in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 0.58mn equities, 47% in value to QR12.15mn and 14% in deals to 392.
The consumer goods sector’s trade volume tanked 27% to 0.27mn stocks, value by 73% to QR6.1mn and transactions by 52% to 150.
The real estate sector saw 1% fall in trade volume to 1mn shares, 18% in value to QR20.4mn and 23% in deals to 367.
Although the industrials sector’s trade volume was flat at 0.77mn equities, there was 1% increase in value to QR49.24mn. Transactions shrank 16% to 740.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.