Foreign buying props up Qatar Exchange 

(MENAFN - The Peninsula) Strong net buying from non-Qatari institutional investors continued for the second straight day yesterday pepping up the trading sentiment on the Qatari bourse.

Analysts said foreign institutions are back with a bang expecting robust financials and handsome dividends for 2009 as it is time for the listed entities to begin reporting their annual results. The 20-stock main benchmark index of Qatar Exchange (QE) was, though, up only by a slight 26 points to 7,032. In percentage terms, the jump worked out to less than half.

The market capitalisation of the QE also inched up marginally to QR321.74bn as 17 of the 44 listed stocks gained. Fourteen of them fell while nine remained unchanged. All the four counters advanced but none of them was up more than one percent. The maximum gain was shown by the insurance stocks, whereas the industrial shares gained barely 0.10 percent.

However, none of the 17 shares that gained at the close of yesterday's trading advanced more than 1.5 percent. Among the advancers were Commercialbank, Doha Bank, Al Meera and Qatar Industrial Manufacturing Company.

Major losers, on the other hand, were Qatar Cinema, Qatar General Insurance and Reinsurance and Qatar Telecom (Qtel). Qatar Cinema lost a record 9.09 percent.