Ahead of next month’s FTSE Russell’s upgrade of the Qatar Stock Exchange into emerging markets, investors, particularly Gulf and foreign institutions, yesterday scrambled for blue-chips, leading its key index gain 243 points to inch near the 11,400 mark.
Stronger buying was visible in the banking, insurance and transport counters as the 20-stock Qatar Index soared 2.18%, its largest single-day gain since June 7, to 11,371.12 points.
Rife speculation of more overseas funds inflow, after the upgrade and that FTSE Russell indicated it would relax the criteria of including the individual stocks in its emerging-markets index, reinforced the buying spree in the market, which is up 9.03% year-to-date.
Large-cap equities found much favour among the investors in the market, where banking, realty and industrials stocks together constituted about 74% of the total trading volume.
Amid a doubling of trading turnover and volumes, market capitalisation shot up 2.26%, or more than QR13bn, to QR607.91bn as large, mid and small cap equities rose 2.83%, 0.97% and 0.92% respectively.
The Total Return Index soared 2.18% to 18,397.72 points, the All Share Index by 2.04% to 3,122.39 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.76% to 4,271.92 points.
Banks and financial institutions stocks appreciated 3.57%, followed by insurance (2.84%), transport (2.73%), industrials (0.81%), real estate (0.66%), telecom (0.54%) and consumer goods (0.04%).
More than 60% of the traded stocks extended gains with major movers being QNB, Commercial Bank, QIIB, Qatar Insurance, Aamal Company, Milaha, Ezdan, Mazaya Qatar and Nakilat; even as Vodafone Qatar, Qatar First Bank, Dlala and Qatari German Company for Medical Devices bucked the trend.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying strengthened considerably to QR190.38mn compared to QR29.49mn the previous day.
GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) institutions’ net buying also increased perceptibly to QR111.99mn against QR11.3mn on Monday.
However, domestic institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR131.9mn compared with buyer of QR0.89mn on Monday.
Local retail investors’ net profit-booking surged to QR119.58mn against QR34.03mn the previous day.
GCC individual investors’ net selling increased to QR34.42mn compared to QR2.38mn on Monday.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net profit-booking soared to QR16.48mn against QR5.28mn on Monday.
Total trade volume more than doubled to 17.64mn shares and value also more than doubled to QR815.68mn on a 48% jump in deals to 7,962.
The insurance sector’s trade volume almost quadrupled to 0.79mn equities and value grew more than five-fold to QR63.16mn on more-than-doubled transactions to 521.
The real estate sector’s trade volume almost quadrupled to 3.87mn stocks and value also almost quadrupled to QR81.94bn on a 70% jump in deals to 1,016.
The industrials sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 3.82mn shares, value soared 69% to QR141.84mn and transactions by 65% to 1,974.
The transport sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 1.4mn equities and value also more than doubled to QR64.52mn on more-than-doubled deals to 709.
The consumer goods sector reported a 69% surge in trade volume to 0.83mn stocks, 82% in value to QR52.83mn and 38% in transactions to 592.
The telecom sector’s trade volume expanded 67% to 1.64mn shares, value by 70% to QR62.89mn and deals by 4% to 778.
The banks and financial services sector saw a 40% increase in trade volume to 5.29mn equities, more than doubling value to QR348.51mn on a 27% rise in transactions to 2,372.


Most Gulf markets retreat


Most Gulf markets gave up early gains yesterday to close lower and Dubai pulled back from technical resistance.
Dubai’s index fell 0.4% to 3,587 points, retreating from technical resistance at its April peak of 3,605 points. Abu Dhabi also lost 0.4% as banks fell, although Aldar Properties, the most heavily traded stock, climbed 2.1%. Saudi Arabia’s index fell 0.5% in a broad-based decline, with losers outnumbering gainers 119 to 30.
In Egypt, the index dropped 0.8% on profit-taking. 
Elsewhere in the Gulf, Kuwait’s index rose 0.3 % to 5,507 points, while Bahrain’s index dropped 0.6 % to 1,152 points.