By Santhosh V. Perumal/Business Reporter

Qatar Stock Exchange gained for the second day and its key index inched near the 10,900 mark, mainly lifted by telecom stocks.

Foreign institutions’ net selling substantially weakened as the 20-stock Qatar Index rose 0.3% to 10,860.18 points on higher overall volumes.

Local retail investors and domestic institutions continued to be net buyers but with lesser intensity in the market, which is, however, down 11.6% year-to-date.

The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks was seen gaining slower than the other indices in the bourse, where trading was largely skewed towards the real estate and banking sectors, which together constituted about 57% of the volume.

Market capitalisation rose 0.33% or about QR2bn to QR570.54bn with mid, small, micro and large cap equities gaining 0.64%, 0.43%, 0.33% and 0.25% respectively.

The Total Return Index grew 0.3% to 16,880.6 points, All Share Index by 0.31% to 2,895.09 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.29% to 4,088.82 points.

Telecom stocks shot up 1.59%, insurance (0.44%), real estate (0.42%), banks and financial services (0.37%), industrials (0.11%) and consumer goods (0.08%); while transport fell 0.26%.

About 59% of the stocks extended gains with major gainers being Ooredoo, Barwa, Qatar Islamic Bank, Doha Bank, Islamic Holding Group, Dlala and Nakilat; even as Commercial Bank, Gulf International Services, Aamal Company and Mazaya Qatar bucked the trend.

Non-Qatari institutions’ net selling considerably weakened to QR2.44mn compared to QR25.48mn on November 18.

Non-Qatari individual investors’ net profit booking also declined to QR2.54mn against QR5.28mn on Wednesday.

The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) individual investors’ net selling fell to QR0.29mn compared to QR3mn the previous day.

However, the GCC institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR6.5mn against net buyers of QR3.2mn on November 18.

Domestic institutions’ net buying plunged to QR6.41mn compared to QR21.87mn on Wednesday.

Local retail investors’ net buying declined to QR5.35mn against QR8.69mn the previous day.

Total trade volume rose 16% to 4.83mn shares and value by 7% to QR192.45mn, while deals were down 7% to 2,753.

The real estate sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 1.54mn equities and value also more than doubled to QR34.97mn on 32% jump in transactions to 478.

The consumer goods sector saw 47% surge in trade volume to 0.28mn stocks but on 25% fall in value to QR5.91mn and 26% in deals to 118.

The insurance sector’s trade volume soared 33% to 0.04mn shares and value by 36% to QR3.24mn, while transactions were down 1% to 73.

There was 27% expansion in the industrials sector’s trade volume to 0.52mn equities and 47% in value to QR43.77mn but on less than 1% decline in deals to 632.

The telecom sector’s trade volume increased 24% to 0.41mn stocks, value by 44% to QR11.74mn and transactions by 14% to 280.

However, there was 28% plunge in the transport sector’s trade volume to 0.83mn shares, 21% in value to QR24.32mn and 13% in deals to 341.

The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume tanked 16% to 1.2mn equities, value by 21% to QR68.5mn and transactions by 25% to 831.

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