Telecom, industrials and insurance counters witnessed severe profit booking as the 20-stock Qatar Index closed 0.73% lower at 10,634.9 points. The market’s year-to-date gains have narrowed down to 1.97%.
More than 56% of the stocks were in the red with large caps bearing the brunt most.
Trade turnover and volumes declined – especially on account of transport, insurance and consumer goods – in the bourse, where banking, industrials and realty scrips together accounted for about 79% of the total volume.
Islamic stocks were seen dropping relatively slower than their conventional peers in the market, where local, Gulf and non-Qatari individual investors were seen increasingly bullish and domestic institutions turned bullish.
Market capitalisation shed 0.51%, or about QR3bn, to QR569.28bn mainly on a 0.94% fall in large-cap equities; even as small, mid and micro caps fell 0.45%, 0.43% and 0.1% respectively.
The Total Return Index fell 0.73% to 17,206.57 points, the All Share Index by 0.51% to 2,927.98 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.49% to 4,008.28 points.
Telecom stocks shrank 1.13%, followed by industrials (1.11%), insurance (0.9%), banks and financial services (0.35%), real estate (0.19%) and transport (0.11%); while consumer goods gained 0.31%.
Influential losers included Industries Qatar, Ooredoo, Qatar Insurance, Qatar Electricity and Water, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Barwa, Vodafone Qatar, Nakilat, Commercial Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Masraf Al Rayan and United Development Company; whereas QNB, Aamal Company, Qatari Investors Group and Mazaya Qatar bucked the trend.
Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying declined substantially to QR1.33mn compared to QR95.18mn the previous day.
GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) institutions’ net selling surged to QR69.55mn against QR4.21mn on September 6.
However, domestic institutions turned net buyers to the tune of QR32.53mn compared with net sellers of QR115.06mn on Tuesday.
Local retail investors’ net buying strengthened to QR18.78mn against QR10.52mn the previous day.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net buying also rose to QR11.01mn compared to QR7.73mn on September 6.
GCC individual investors’ net buying increased marginally to QR5.93mn against QR5.85mn on Tuesday.
Total trade volume fell 30% to 5.64mn shares, value by 26% to QR256.54mn and deals by 17% to 5,107.
The transport sector reported a 66% plunge in trade volume to 0.24mn equities, 69% in value to QR7.6mn and 3% in transactions to 457.
The insurance sector’s trade volume plummeted 60% to 0.06mn stocks, value by 64% to QR4.71mn and deals by 68% to 68.
The consumer goods sector witnessed a 53% shrinkage in trade volume to 0.15mn shares, 31% in value to QR9.71mn and 35% in transactions to 224.
The telecom sector’s trade volume tanked 46% to 0.76mn equities, value by 46% to QR20.48mn and deals by 20% to 722.
There was a 22% decline in the real estate sector’s trade volume to 0.91mn stocks, 24% in value to QR19.07mn and 41% in transactions to 663.
The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume sunk 21% to 2.52mn shares, value by 22% to QR129.41mn and deals by less than 1% to 1,830.
The market witnessed a 4% fall in the industrials sector’s trade volume to 1.01mn equities, 4% in value to QR65.55mn and 8% in transactions to 1,143.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.