Foreign institutions hurriedly squared of their positions, leading the 20-stock Qatar Index to knock off 0.95% and close lower at 10,534.1 points. The market’s year-to-date gains have narrowed down to 1%.
Profit-booking was higher at the telecom, realty, banking and transport counters in the bourse, where banking, real estate and industrials stocks together accounted for more than 72% of the total volumes.
Islamic stocks were seen declining slower than the conventional ones in the market, where local individual investors and domestic institutions were notably seen increasingly bullish.
Market capitalisation shed 0.72%, or more than QR4bn, to QR565.19bn.
The Total Return Index fell 0.95% to 17,043.48 points, the All Share Index by 0.73% to 2,906.72 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.52% to 3,987.5 points.
Telecom stocks shrank 1.6%, realty (1.3%), banks and financial services (1.05%) and transport (1.03%); whereas insurance gained 0.48%, industrials (0.08%) and consumer goods (0.03%).
Influential losers included Ooredoo, Ezdan, QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank, Commercial Bank, Industries Qatar, Qatari Investors Group and Nakilat; even as Mazaya Qatar, Barwa, Vodafone Qatar, Gulf International Services, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Dlala and al khaliji bucked the trend.
Non-Qatari institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR80.16mn against net buyers of QR1.33mn the previous day.
GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) individual investors’ net buying fell to QR3.87mn compared to QR5.93mn on Wednesday.
However, domestic institutions’ net buying strengthened to QR62.91mn against QR32.53mn on September 7.
Local retail investors’ net buying also increased to QR47.79mn compared to QR18.78mn the previous day.
Non-Qatari individual investors’ net buying rose marginally to QR11.43mn against QR11.01mn on Wednesday.
GCC institutions’ net profit-booking weakened to QR45.8mn compared to QR69.55mn on September 7.
Total trade volume rose 71% to 9.63mn shares, value by 69% to QR434.49mn and deals by 35% to 6,918.
The insurance sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 0.21mn equities and value also more than tripled to QR17.48mn on more than tripled transactions to 231.
The transport sector’s trade volume more than tripled to 0.76mn stocks and value more than doubled to QR20.8mn on a 7% jump in deals to 487.
The real estate sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 2.14mn shares and value also more than doubled to QR49.39mn on more-than-doubled transactions to 1,343.
The consumer goods sector’s trade volume more than doubled to 0.32mn equities, value soared 61% to QR15.63mn and deals by 37% to 307.
The telecom sector reported a 84% surge in trade volume to 1.4mn stocks, 94% in value to QR39.66mn and 14% in transactions to 821.
The industrials sector’s trade volume soared 61% to 1.63mn shares, value by 52% to QR99.78mn and deals by 30% to 1,491.
The banks and financial services sector saw a 26% expansion in trade volume to 3.18mn equities, 48% in value to QR191.75mn and 22% in transactions to 2,238.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.