20/09/2014 01:35 AST
Foreign institutions’ net bought equities worth QR264mn to place the Qatar Stock Exchange in a higher trajectory near the 14,400 mark during the week as Standard and Poor’s-Dow Jones officially place the bourse in emerging market group from Monday.
An above-average buying pressure in the telecom and banking counters helped the Qatari bourse gain 1.86% to reach an all-time high of 14,350.5 points during the week that saw QNB acquire an additional 11% stake in the pan-African Ecobank Transnational.
In comparison, Dubai rose 2.76%, Kuwait (1.47%) and Abu Dhabi (1.02%); while Muscat, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia fell 0.53%, 0.06% and 0.01% respectively during the week. QSE has reported 38.26% gains year-to-date (YTD) against Dubai (51.28%), Saudi Arabia (29.6%), Abu Dhabi (21.98%), Bahrain (17.47%), Muscat (9.48%) and Kuwait (0.65%).
Large and mid cap equities notably witnessed strong buying interests during the week that saw Industries Qatar confirm that its Al Sejeel Petrochemical project has been put on hold, pending studies.
Telecom stocks appreciated about 6%, banks and financial services by more than 2%, industrials and consumer goods by more than 1% each and real estate by about 1% during the week that saw Gulf Drilling International sign QR825mn construction contract with Keppel FELs for a new jack-up drill rig.
More than 72% of the traded companies extended gains during the week which saw trade volume largely skewed towards realty and banks, which together accounted for about 69% of the total trade volume.
The 20-stock Total Return Index gained 1.86%, All Share Index (comprising wider constituents) by 1.75% and Al Rayan Islamic Index by 1.56% during the week, which saw Ezdan and Vodafone Qatar dominate the trading rings in terms of both volume and value.
Of the 43 stocks, 31 appreciated, while only 12 declined during the week that witnessed Masraf Al Rayan buying out Al Rayan Partners from its subsidiary Al Rayan Investment.
10 of the 12 banks and financial services; six each of the nine industrials and the eight consumer goods; all of the four real estate; three of the five insurers and all of the two telecom stocks close higher during the week that witnessed Barwa entering into a deal with Qatari Diar to sell its stake in two companies for a total consideration of QR69mn.
The week, which saw Ezdan and Masraf Al Rayan dominate the trading in terms of volume and value respectively, witnessed the US Federal Reserve maintain its status quo on the near zero interest rate policy.
Major gainers included Widam Food, Doha Insurance, Islamic Holding Group, Barwa and Milaha; while International Islamic, Dlala, Qatar Islamic Insurance, Salam International Investment and Mazaya Qatar bucked the trend during the week that saw the bourse announce revision to its key index with effect from October 1.
Market capitalisation stood at QR762.57bn with large cap equities gaining 2.49%, mid (1.29%), micro (0.83%) and small (0.52%) during the week that QSE announce that Ezdan Holding and Mazaya Qatar will replace al khaliji and Al Meera in the QE Index, effective from October.
Micro, small, mid and large micro cap stocks have gained YTD 52.12%, 41.53%, 34.24% and 30.79% respectively.
Foreign institutions were net buyers to the tune of QR263.92mn; while their domestic counterparts were net sellers to the extent of QR288.43mn.
Local retail investors’ net buying was QR82.79mn; whereas non-Qatari individual investors booked profits to the tune of QR57.95mn.
A total of 80.76mn shares valued at QR3.31bn changed hands across 33,675 transactions.
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