(MENAFN- Gulf Times) An across-the-board selling, especially in insurance and bank stocks, further weakened Qatar's bourse as its key index shed a whopping 233 points to settle below the 12,000 mark yesterday.
Foreign institutions were seen booking profits to drive the 20-stock Qatar Index (based on price data) down 1.91% to 11,995.67 points amid rising volumes.
Domestic institutions' net buying support was seen stronger on the bourse, which is, however, down 2.36% year-to-date.
Market capitalisation shed 1.64%, or more than, QR11bn to QR662.44bn with mid, large and micro cap equities notably falling 2.46%, 1.77% and 1.13% respectively.
The index that tracks Shariah-principled stocks underperformed other major indices in the market, where trade was highly skewed towards realty, industrials and banks, which accounted for about 78% of the total trade volume.
The Total Return Index lost 1.91% to 17,891.43 points, the All Share Index by 1.78% to 3,079.9 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 2.34% to 3,992.1 points.
Insurance stocks shrank 2.42%, followed by banks and financial services (2.17%), real estate (1.87%), industrials (1.59%), telecom (0.79%) and consumer goods (0.62%).
About 83% of the stocks were in the red with major shakers being Aamal Company, Gulf International Services, Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding, Barwa, Mazaya Qatar, Ezdan, Vodafone Qatar, QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank, Commercial Bank and Doha Bank. Mannai Corp, Qatar General and Reinsurance and Widam Food bucked the trend.
Foreign institutions' net profit-booking rose to QR34.91mn compared to QR6.59mn the previous day.
Qatari retail investors' net selling fell to QR2.2mn against QR5.58mn on January 4.
Non-Qatari individual investors' net buying rose to QR4.64mn compared to QR3.05mn on Sunday.
Domestic institutions' net buying strengthened to QR32.44mn against QR9.12mn the previous day.
Total trade volume rose 22% to 7.42mn shares, value by 59% to QR309.24mn and transactions by 50% to 5,998.
The consumer goods sector's trade volume jumped five-fold to 0.3mn stocks and value more than five-fold to QR16.3mn as deals more than tripled to 415.
The telecoms sector saw more than tripling of trade volume to 0.9mn equities and value expanded about seven-fold to QR45.25mn on more-than-tripled transactions to 1,008.
The insurance sector's trade volume more than doubled to 0.13mn shares and value also more than doubled to QR7.82mn as deals on more than doubled to 118.
The banks and financial services reported an 80% surge in trade volume to 1.55mn stocks and value more than doubled to QR104.5mn on 87% expansion in transactions to 1,569.
The real estate sector's trade volume was up 6% to 2.67mn equities, value by 11% to QR67.4mn and deals by 14% to 1,197.
However, the market witnessed a 33% plunge in the transport sector's trade volume to 0.22mn stocks even as there was 36% rise in value to QR10.72mn. Transactions tanked 22% to 110.
The insurance sector's trade volume fell 19% to 1.64mn shares and value by 13% to QR57.26mn; while deals were up 7% to 1,581.
In the debt market, a total of 5,000 treasury bills valued at QR49.8mn changed hands across one transaction, but there was no trading in government bonds.
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