(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Qatar Stock Exchange yesterday witnessed corrections, after making huge gains for two consecutive days, to plunge 238 points, mainly due to severe selling in the banking and real estate stocks.
Local retail investors increasingly booked profits to drag the 20-stock Qatar Index (based on price data) by 1.91% to 12,183.52 points, discounting the positive influence of the strengthened oil prices.
Weakened buying intensity among foreign institutions was also a factor in the bearish sentiments in the bourse, which is, however, up 17.38% years-to-date.
Market capitalisation fell 1.86% or about QR13bn to QR665.21bn with large, small, mid and micro cap equities melting 2.34%, 1.98%, 0.57% and 0.13% respectively.
The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks was seem melting slower than the other indices in the market, where trade was highly skewed towards realty, which alone accounted for more than 53% of the total trade volume.
The Total Return Index shed 1.91% to 18,171.6 points, All Share Index by 1.79% to 3,097.13 points and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 1.39% to 4,043.33 points.
Banks and financial services stocks tanked 2.38%, realty (2.24%), industrials (1.74%), insurance (1.24%) and telecom (0.71%); whereas transport rose 0.31% and consumer goods was unchanged.
About 73% of the stocks were in the red with major shakers being QNB, Industries Qatar, Gulf International Services, Vodafone Qatar, Masraf Al Rayan, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Barwa, Ezdan, Mazaya Qatar, gulf Warehousing and Islamic Holding Group. However, Nakilat and Doha Bank bucked the trend.
Qatari retail investors' net profit booking surged to QR106.1mn against QR74.74mn the previous day.
Foreign institutions' net buying sunk to QR43.18mn compared to QR75.84mn December 22.
However, non-Qatari individual investors turned net buyers to the extent of QR12.88mn against net sellers of QR16.68mn on Monday.
Domestic institutions' net buying strengthened to QR49.97mn compared to QR15.67mn the previous day.
Total trade volume fell 34% to 16.26mn shares, value by 30% to QR707.81mn and transactions by 29% to 7,778.
The transport sector saw its trade volume plummet 56% to 0.44mn equities, value by 56% to QR19.93mn and deals by 42% to 269.
The consumer goods sector's trade volume plunged 50% to 0.54mn stocks, value by 59% to QR34.47mn and transactions by 46% to 453.
There was 49% decline in the industrials sector's trade volume to 1.5mn shares, 46% in value to QR120.45mn and 33% in deals to 1,516.
The telecom sector's trade volume tanked 49% to 1.69mn equities, value by 51% to QR36.05mn and transactions by 39% to 821.
The banks and financial services sector reported 29% shrinkage in trade volume to 3mn stocks, 28% in value to QR207.83mn and 35% in deals to 1,787.
The real estate sector's trade volume shrank 28% to 8.63mn shares, value by 5% to QR258.66mn and transactions by 11% to 2,717.
However, the insurance sector's trade volume grew 70% to 0.46mn equities and value by 69% to QR30.42mn but deals were down 2% to 215.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
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US-Cuba-diplomacy-espionage-politics-pregnancy US-Cuba-diplomacy-espionage-politics-pregnancy
Wife of freed Cuba agent pregnant, thanks to US
Before President Barack Obama announced last week that Washington and Havana would restore diplomatic ties, one US official had already been working on a special project - call it insemination diplomacy - to unite the two countries.
Officials have confirmed that a US senator helped a Cuban spy imprisoned in California to impregnate his wife, eager to have a child but separated by prison walls and an ocean.
The highly improbable arrangements allowed for Adriana Perez Hernandez to be artificially inseminated months before husband Gerardo Hernandez returned to Cuba to a hero's welcome last Wednesday.
While the island celebrated the thawing of relations with the United States, the pregnancy quickly became the talk of Cuba.
On state television, Hernandez, who was freed along with two other Cuban agents, spoke delicately of how his wife's pregnancy was achieved "by remote control" earlier this year.
The parents-to-be owe much of their good fortune to Senator Patrick Leahy, who has made several trips to the communist-ruled island over the years.
Leahy visited Havana in February 2013 with his wife Marcelle, a registered nurse, in order to secure better conditions for Alan Gross, a jailed US citizen who was ultimately released last week on humanitarian grounds as part of the normalization push.
Leahy and his wife met last year with Perez Hernandez, who "made a personal appeal to Marcelle," the senior Democrat said in a statement.
"She was afraid that she would never have the chance to have a child," said Leahy, who chairs the State Department and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and who opposes the US embargo on Cuba.
"As parents and grandparents we both wanted to try to help her."
That meeting put in motion a series of requests, actions and overcoming of medical logistics that led to the pregnancy.
The Justice Department confirmed to AFP that Washington "facilitated Mrs. Hernandez's request to have a baby with her husband."
US officials said all costs were paid for by the Cuban government.
Hernandez was arrested in the United States in 1998 and convicted in 2001 on charges of espionage and conspiracy to murder. He and five other Cubans were sentenced to two life sentences plus 15 years.
Hernandez was released Wednesday, alongside two other Cubans jailed on the same charges. Two of the five had been released earlier in 2014 and 2013.
Hernandez arrived in Cuba to be greeted by Adriana, who shocked onlookers with her pregnant belly, which became an optimistic symbol of the revived ties between the United States and Cuba after five decades of hostility.
The baby, a girl to be named Gema, is due at the end of this month.
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