(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Islamic stocks outshone the conventional ones as the Qatar Stock Exchange on Sunday opened the week on a stronger note.
Stronger buying especially in the real estate scrips led the 20-stock Qatar Index (based on price data) gain 0.23% to 12,525.43 points amid fall in trade volumes.
Local retail investors' net buying support was seen intense in the bourse, which is up 1.95% year-to-date.
Weakening net profit-booking by domestic institutions also helped the bullish momentum in the bourse, where real estate and telecom stocks together cornered about 64% of the total trading volume.
Market capitalisation rose 0.23%, or about QR2bn, to QR679.17bn.
The Total Return Index gained 0.23% to 18,871.48 points, the All Share Index by 0.2% to 3,257.22 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.51% to 4,419.05 points.
Realty stocks appreciated 1.06%, followed by telecom (0.26%), consumer goods (0.25%) and industrials (0.23%) even as telecom shrank 0.47% and insurance fell 0.18%.
Banks and financial services stocks were largely unchanged.
More than 51% of the stocks extended gains with major movers being Barwa, Ezdan, Mazaya Qatar, Vodafone Qatar and Qatari Investors Group; while Dlala, Doha Bank, Widam Food, Gulf International Services, Al Khaleej Takaful, United Development Company and Nakilat bucked the trend.
Qatari retail investors' net buying surged to QR29.64mn against QR18.9mn the previous trading day.
Non-Qatari individual investors turned net buyers to the tune of QR6.57mn compared with net sellers of QR1.95mn last Thursday.
However, foreign institutions turned net profit-takers to the extent of QR16.15mn against net buyers of QR19.22mn on February 19.
Domestic institutions' net selling fell to QR20.03mn compared to QR36.17mn the previous trading day.
Total trade volume was down 8% to 9.33mn shares, value by 25% to QR349.52mn and transactions by 15% to 4,357.
The transport sector's trade volume plummeted 83% to 0.14mn stocks, value by 86% to QR3.8mn and deals by 67% to 96.
The consumer goods sector witnessed a 62% plunge in trade volume to 0.55mn equities, value by 33% to QR33.15mn and transactions by 7% to 465.
The market witnessed a 51% shrinkage in the industrials sector's trade volume to 0.8mn shares, 67% in value to QR48.22mn and 42% in deals to 953.
The insurance sector's trade volume tanked 41% to 0.32mn stocks and value by 37% to QR16.24mn, while transactions rose 33% to 281.
The banks and financial services sector reported a 39% decline in trade volume to 1.57mn equities, 37% in value to QR93.15mn and 27% in deals to 959.
However, the real estate's trade volume more than doubled to 3.61mn shares and value almost tripled to QR113.38mn on a 52% jump in transactions to 1,103.
The telecom sector witnessed a 72% surge in trade volume to 2.34mn stocks, 46% in value to QR41.57mn and 11% in deals to 500.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and government bonds.
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