(MENAFN- The Peninsula) After a day of hesitation at the beginning of the week, things changed to a better start from Monday, with the bourse performing better during the rest of the week. The improvement on the stock market has been stimulated by a number of factors that include the fact that year-end is approaching when it is time for dividend distribution.
The New York Stock Exchange last week registered new record levels for the first time this year, and regionally, stock markets in the UAE, and Riyadh also put up record performance in the hope of the success in negotiations to settle Iran's nuclear issue.
During the week, a number of local news trickled in, prominent among them being the upgrade of Qatar Exchange to emerging market status by Standard's and Poor, similar to what Morgan Stanley did earlier.
Due to these developments, trading on the bourse improved and the benchmark index increased by 236.2 points, to 10,122, a record since 2008.
The all-share indices rose too, besides an increase in the six-sector indices and the capitalisation figure. The trading value witnessed an improvement, too, reaching QR1.89bn.
The upswing in trading on the Qatari bourse was led by Qatari portfolios, and to a lesser extent by non-Qatari portfolios, with their strong net buying. That offset the impact of net selling by retail investors.
Referring to the details of last week's developments, the general index rose by 236.2 points or 2.27 percent to 10212.4 points. The all-index shares soared by 55.9 points or 2.24 percent to 2548.6.
Last week's performance were driven by the rise of benchmark stock prices, all-share index, and the six-sector indices. The banking and the financial services sector increased by 3.17 percent, followed by the industrial sector (2.45 percent), the real estate sector (2.18 percent), the telecommunication sector (1.25 percent) and the goods and services sector (0.08 percent). The transportation sector index decreased 0.55 percent.
Share prices of 29 companies rose, 12 declined, Islamic Insurance Company remained stable. The share price of Investors Group was the highest with 10.02 percent, followed by Cinema (7.77 percent), Vodafone (6.29 percent), Al Rayyan (5.32 percent), QNB (4.58 percent) and Al Mannai (3.87 percent). In contrast, the share price of Al Khalij Takaful was the lowest, decreasing by 2.65 percent, followed by Medicare (2.13 percent), Qatar Islamic Bank (1.1 percent), Islamic group (0.96 percent), Salam (0.90 percent) and Qatar Industrial Manufacturing Company (0.79 percent).
Regarding liquidity, the total trading volume increased marginally by about QR5m to QR1,888.9m, while the daily trading average rose to QR377.8m last week, compared to QR376.7m the previous week. The total trading of the top six companies amounted to around QR1,081.2m or 57.2 percent of the total. Industries Qatar topped the trading at QR252.9m, followed by Al Rayyan (QR186m), United Development Company (QR163.2m), QNB (QR163.2m), Investors Group (QR159.6 m), and Barwa at QR137.2m.
The total market capitalisation increased by about QR12.6bn to QR549.8bn at the close of the week. The net buying by Qatari portfolios was QR104m and non-Qatari portfolios' net buying reached QR67.8m. Qatari individuals sold stocks valued at QR148.5m while non-Qataris sold stocks worth QR23.2m. To conclude, the stock index continued to rise due net buying. This improved the trading environment locally, regionally and internationally.
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