By Santhosh V. Perumal/Business Reporter

Intense profit booking by Gulf individuals was to a great extend negated by stronger buying interests of local retail investors and foreign institutions that the Qatar Stock Exchange fell by a marginal eight points.
Brisk selling was especially seen in the insurance counter as the 20-stock Qatar Index shed 0.07% to 10,802.29 points amid strong expansion in overall volumes and notably in the banking sector.
The buying support of domestic institutions and non-Qatari individual investors weakened in the market, which is down 12.07% year-to-date.
The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks was seen declining bit faster than the other indices in the bourse, where trading was largely skewed towards the banking sector, which alone constituted more than 67% of the volume.
Market capitalisation was down 0.26% or QR90mn to QR567.73bn with mid and large cap equities losing 0.58% and 0.08%; whereas micro and small caps gained 0.43% and 0.08% respectively.
The Total Return Index fell 0.07% to 16,790.61 points, All Share Index by 0.07% to 2,880.65 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.09% to 4,057.87 points.
Insurance stocks plummeted 1.23%, consumer goods (0.3%), industrials (0.17%) and banks and financial services (0.1%); while transport and realty gained 0.84% and 0.22% respectively. Telecom stocks were rather flat.
Major losers included Commercial Bank, QIIB, Qatar Islamic Bank, Industries Qatar, Qatari Investors Group, Qatar Insurance, Barwa and Ooredoo; even as al khaliji, Gulf International Services, Ezdan, Mazaya Qatar, Vodafone Qatar and Nakilat bucked the trend.
The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) individual investors’ net selling significantly increased to QR343.8mn against QR1.35mn on Monday.
Domestic institutions’ net buying considerably weakened to QR0.79mn compared to QR35.11mn on November 16.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net buying also weakened to QR0.36mn against QR6.89mn the previous day.
However, non-Qatari institutions turned net buyers to the tune of QR283.8mn compared with net sellers of QR25.75mn on Monday.
Local retail investors were also net buyers to the extent of QR66.06mn against net sellers of QR1.75mn on November 16.
The GCC institutions’ net profit booking declined to QR7.21mn compared to QR13.13mn the previous day.
Total trade volume almost tripled to 17.08mn shares and value more than tripled to QR721.21mn, while deals were down 2% to 3,156.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume grew more than eight-fold to 11.48mn equities and value by more than six-fold to QR516.43mn on 9% jump in transactions to 1,013.
The insurance sector saw 67% surge in trade volume to 0.15mn stocks and 69% in value to QR12.71mn but deals declined 37% to 63.
The real estate sector’s trade volume soared 61% to 1.61mn shares, value by 69% to QR34.4mn and transactions by 11% to 407.
The market witnessed 50% expansion in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 0.87mn equities and 72% in value to QR20.89mn but on 24% fall in deals to 296.
The industrials sector’s trade volume shot up 34% to 1.03mn stocks, value by 72% to QR84.84mn and transactions by 7% to 790.
There was 10% growth in the transport sector’s trade volume to 1.8mn shares but value was down 3% to QR45.27mn and deals by 14% to 464.
However, the consumer goods sector’s trade volume tanked 48% to 0.14mn equities, value by 24% to QR4.66mn and transactions by 18% to 123.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.