By Santhosh V. Perumal/Business Reporter

Mid and large cap equities witnessed corrections, leading the Qatar Stock Exchange open the week with a marginal seven points fall.

Selling in the consumer goods, transport, industrials and banking sectors masked the buying interests in telecom, insurance and real estate that the 20-stock Qatar Index lost 0.07% to 9,906 points.

Domestic institutions’ buying support weakened and local retail investors’ net selling strengthened in the market, which is down 19.37% year-to-date.

The buying interests of non-Qatari individual investors were seen weakening in the bourse, where overall volumes declined.

The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks was, however, seen gaining the most in the market, where the banking and industrials sectors dominated the trading ring as their stocks accounted for about 61% of the volumes.

Market capitalisation was up 0.06% or QR32mn to QR525.41bn with small and micro cap equities gaining 1.04% and 1.03%; whereas mid and large caps fell 0.38% and 0.05% respectively.

The Total Return Index was down 0.07% to 15,397.45 points, while All Share Index was up 0.02% to 2,647.38 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.27% to 3,666.06 points.

Consumer goods stocks shrank 0.98%, transport (0.63%), industrials (0.2%) and banks and financial services (0.14%); even as telecom gained 1.45%, insurance (1.13%) and realty (0.55%).

Major losers included Gulf International Services, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Barwa, Mazaya Qatar, Vodafone Qatar, Nakilat, Woqod, Commercial Bank, Doha Bank and Qatar Islamic Bank; whereas Ooredoo, Ezdan, Islamic Holding Group, Qatari German Company for Medical Devices, Widam Food, Dlala and Qatari Investors Group bucked the trend.

Domestic institutions’ net buying weakened perceptibly to QR17.89mn compared to QR49.66mn last Thursday.

Local retail investors’ net profit booking expanded to QR26.55mn against QR21.06mn the previous trading day.

Non-Qatari individual investors’ net buying shrank to QR1.89mn compared to QR5.68mn on December 17.

However, non-Qatari institutions’ net profit booking weakened substantially to QR4.66mn against QR35.42mn last Thursday.

The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) institutions’ net buying soared to QR11.08mn compared to QR4.52mn the previous trading day.

The GCC individual investors turned net buyers to the tune of QR0.35mn against net profit takers of QR3.36mn on December 17.

Total trade volume was down 9% to 5.08mn shares, value by 21% to QR205.14mn and deals by 16% to 3,241.

There was 56% plunge in the insurance sector’s trade volume to 0.04mn equities, 56% in value to QR2.53mn and 14% in transactions to 83.

The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume plummeted 22% to 2.1mn stocks, value by 25% to QR100.85mn and deals by 35% to 983.

The market witnessed 19% shrinkage in the telecom sector’s trade volume to 0.51mn shares, 53% in value to QR11.91mn and 36% in transactions to 502.

The real estate sector’s trade volume shrank 3% to 0.78mn equities and value by 3% to QR16.25mn, while deals grew 45% to 500.

The industrials sector saw 1% fall in trade volume to 0.98mn stocks and 4% in value to QR56.71mn but on 6% gain in transactions to 733.

However, the consumer goods sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 0.48mn equities but value fell less than 1% to QR12.32mn and deals by 1% to 304.

The market witnessed 6% jump in the transport sector’s trade volume to 0.18mn equities but on 15% decline in value to QR4.57mn. Transactions were up 11% to 136.

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