(MENAFN - The Peninsula) Qatar's bourse closed for the weekend on Thursday on an optimistic note as its 20-stock benchmark index ended 269 points higher. The gain in percentage terms worked out to 4.11.
Trading figures suggest the bourse, Doha Securities Market (DSM), has been consistently recovering with the main index gradually yet steadily inching up to cross the magical 7,000-mark.
The index has been mobile upwards in recent times primarily due to increasing net buying support from foreign institutional as well as retail investors. It closed at 6,809 on Thursday.
Net buying from foreign institutional investors rose last week as well to 17.92 percent, while offloading was only to the extent of 13.43 percent. In contrast, local institutional and individual investors were involved more in offloading than buying.
Although overall trading value and volumes fell during the five-day trading, investors were richer by a little over QR6bn as market capitalisation rose (backed by the index gain) from QR272.21bn the previous week to QR278.25bn on Thursday.
The number of deals concluded on the bourse also fell from a high of almost 74,000 the previous week to 45,700. Almost half of the total number of transactions involved banking and financial services stocks. Insurance shares ended with a poor share of 2.42 percent in the total.
A highlight of trading last week was real estate giant and large cap Barwa leading in terms of trading value, pushing fundamentally formidable Industries Qatar (IQ), an all-time favorite of foreign institutional investors, especially, to the number three slot.
First time in weeks, Masraf Al Rayan, the Islamic banking entity, bagged the number two spot accounting for 12.53 percent share in total trading value.
Top on the list of 32 gainers last week were al khaliji (bank), Barwa Real Estate, Qatar-German Medical Devices Company and Gulf Insurance. They advanced between 10 and 14 percent.
Other advancers included Qatar Cement, Qatar Real Estate Company, Qatar Insurance and large cap Qatar National Bank (QNB). IQ gained marginally at 0.56 percent with its shares quoting at QR108.10 from the previous close of QR107.50.
Losers, much like the gainers, did not show any pattern, and among them were Aamal, Qatar Navigation, Qatar Telecom and Zad. None of the banking and financial services stocks fell.
Analysts said they hoped if the market kept recovering as it has been recently, the benchmark index could easily breach the 7,000-mark over the next five trading days.
