Foreign buying interest drives QSE past 7,900 mark

The buying interest of foreign institutions and individuals on Monday steered the Qatar Stock Exchange to surpass the 7,900 level with ease.

An across-the-board buying particularly in the realty, banking and consumer goods lifted the 20-stock Qatar Index for the second straight session by 1.22% to 7,923.07 points.
The strengthening of the bourse comes amidst global index provider MSCI's decision to continue using the local foreign exchange rates and not switch to the offshore rates for the Qatari riyal in its indexes until further notice.
However, domestic and Gulf funds were increasingly net sellers and local retail investors turned bearish in the market, whose year-to-date losses were at 24.08%.
Islamic equities were seen outperforming the main index in the bourse, whose capitalisation gained 1.34% to QR434.48bn.
Trade turnover and volumes were on the increase in the market, where banking, industrials and real estate sectors together accounted for more than 69% of the total volume.
The Total Return Index gained 1.22% to 13,286.52 points, the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 1.38% to 3,112.94 points and the All Share Index by 1.51% to 2,243.77 points.
The realty index shot up 2.82%, banks and financial services (1.65%), consumer goods (1.49%), transport (1.32%), telecom (0.83%), industrials (0.76%) and insurance (0.68%).
More than 67% of the stocks extended gains with major movers being Ezdan, QNB, QIIB, Masraf Al Rayan, Widam Food, Qatari Investors Group, Qatar General and Reinsurance, Mazaya Qatar and Gulf Warehousing; while Ahli bank, Dlala, Qatari German Company for Medical Devices, Gulf International Services and Qatar Islamic Insurance were among the losers.
Non-Qatari institutions turned net buyers to the extent of QR20.5mn against net sellers of QR2.42mn on December 10.
Non-Qatari individuals' net buying increased perceptibly to QR6.64mn compared to QR2.31mn the previous day.
However, local retail investors turned net sellers to the tune of QR13.96mn against net buyers of QR0.83mn on Sunday.
Domestic institutions' net profit-booking grew considerably to QR11.43mn compared to QR0.41mn on December 10.
Gulf institutions' net selling strengthened influentially to QR1.72mn against QR0.63mn the previous day.
Gulf retail investors turned net sellers to the extent of QR0.03mn compared with net buyers of QR0.31mn on Sunday.
Total trade volume rose 16% to 6.81mn shares, value by 59% to QR172.14mn and deals by 35% to 3,570.
The consumer goods sector's trade volume almost tripled to 0.42mn equities and value more than doubled to QR19.91mn on an 88% increase in transactions to 326.
The banks and financial services sector's trade volume more than doubled to 1.93mn stocks and value almost tripled to QR68.5mn on more-than-doubled deals to 1,279.
The insurance sector reported an 87% surge in trade volume to 0.58mn shares to almost quadruple value to QR24.33mn on 10% higher transactions to 110.
The transport sector's trade volume soared 47% to 0.72mn equities but value was down less than 1% to QR14.04mn despite a 90% jump in deals to 371.
There was a 14% expansion in the real estate sector's trade volume to 1.39mn stocks, 5% in value to QR16.86mn and 26% in transactions to 588.
However, the industrials sector's trade volume plummeted 42% to 1.4mn shares, value by 23% to QR21.97mn and deals by 3% to 679.
The telecom sector saws an 18% decline in trade volume to 0.37mn equities, 52% in value to QR4.53mn and 53% in transactions to 217.
In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.