Qatar Stock Exchange on Wednesday witnessed profit booking – especially in consumer goods, insurance and industrials – to lose 32 points, thus failing to break the 10,500 resistance level, after witnessing two days of consecutive gains.

Gulf institutions turned bearish and their foreign counterparts’ net buying support considerably weakened, leading to a 0.31% decline in the 20-stock Qatar Index to 10,452.11 points, largely reflecting the gloomy third quarter performance of some of the key listed companies.

Trade turnover were on the decline amidst higher volumes in the bourse, whose year-to-date gains were contained at 0.22%, even as global oil prices were on the rise on falling Chinese production and US inventories.

Small, mid and microcap equities witnessed brisk selling in the market, where banking, telecom and realty sectors constituted more than 81% of the total volumes.

Islamic stocks were seen declining faster than the conventional ones in the bourse, where Gulf individual investors were increasingly net sellers.

However, net profit booking intensity of local retail investors and domestic institutions were seen weakening.

Market capitalisation fell 0.31% or about QR2bn to QR562.32bn as small, mid, micro and large cap equities declined 1.22%, 0.65%, 0.58% and 0.11% respectively.

The Total Return Index shed 0.31% to 16,910.82 points, All Share Index by 0.35% to 2,880.55 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.49% to 3,890.71 points.

Consumer goods equities tanked 1.54%, insurance (0.65%), industrials (0.57%), real estate (0.23%) and banks and financial services (0.19%); whereas transport and telecom gained 0.13% and 0.05% respectively.

About 63% of the traded equities were in the red with major losers being Industries Qatar, Commercial Bank, Doha Bank, al khaliji, Aamal Company, Qatar Insurance, Mazaya Qatar, Ezdan, Vodafone Qatar, Milaha, Islamic Holding Group, Alijarah Holding and United Development Company.

Nevertheless, Ooredoo, Nakilat, Qatar Islamic Bank, QNB, Dlala, Gulf International Services and Barwa were among those which gained.

The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR5.85mn against net buyers of QR0.35mn on Tuesday.

Non-Qatari institutions’ net buying weakened considerably to QR49.4mn compared to QR109.74mn on October 18.

The GCC individual investors’ net profit booking rose to QR2.14mn against QR0.21mn the previous day.

However, domestic institutions’ net selling declined perceptibly to QR37.64mn compared to QR75.1mn on Tuesday.

Local retail investors’ net profit booking also fell substantially to QR3.69mn against QR32.96mn on October 18.

Non-Qatari individual investors’ net selling weakened to QR0.06mn compared to QR1.84mn the previous day.

Total trade volume rose 17% to 6.13mn shares, while value fell 15% to QR198.32mn and deals by 12% to 2,628.

The telecom sector’s trade volume almost tripled to 1.95mn equities and value soared 64% to QR25.4mn but on 1% fall in transactions to 263.

There was 62% surge in the consumer goods sector’s trade volume to 0.21mn stocks, 18% in value to QR14.42mn and 31% in deals to 346.

The banks and financial services sector’s trade volume shot up 43% to 1.98mn shares and value by 31% to QR87.83mn, while transactions declined 18% to 898.

The market witnessed 33% expansion in the real estate sector’s trade volume to 1.05mn equities and 31% in value to QR20.53mn but on 7% fall in deals to 327.

The transport sector’s trade volume was up 9% to 0.37mn stocks but value shrank 2% to QR20.6mn. Transactions gained 82% to 370.

However, the industrials sector reported 72% plunge in trade volume to 0.53mn shares, 71% in value to QR27.81mn and 47% in deals to 374.

The insurance sector’s trade volume plummeted 60% to 0.02mn equities, value by 57% to QR1.73mn and transactions by 58% to 50.

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