Doha bourse mirrors Gulf trend, with only Bahrain gaining

The Qatar Exchange which closed the week in the negative, despite domestic institutional buying support. The index largely mirrored the trend in Gulf bourses. Buying interest in industrials, telecoms and consumer goods was affected by profit-booking in the telecom, financial and transport sectors.

The QE Index (based on price data) and Total Return Index (which also incorporates dividend income) fell 0.54% each in the week that saw the Kuwait bourse shrink 2.3%, Saudi Arabia (-1.22%), Abu Dhabi (-0.96%), Dubai (-0.55%) and Bahrain (-0.51%). Only Muscat gained, by 0.81%.

Mid and large cap equities lost their sheen in the QE in the week that featured the country’s 2012-13 budget, which expects a 23% surplus although expenditure is slated to grow faster than receipts.

Doha’s bourse shrank year-to-date (ytd) 4.13% vis-à-vis Dubai’s gain of 8.73%, Saudi Arabia (8.69%), Kuwait (6.53%), Abu Dhabi (1.61%) and Muscat (1.05%); while Bahrain fell 0.36%. Major losers in the QE were QNB, Doha Bank, Industries Qatar, Dlala, Ezdan, Vodafone Qatar, Qatar Telecom and Nakilat; even as Salam International Investment, Al Meera, Qatari Investors Group, Aamal Company, Gulf International Services, Mazaya Qatar and United Development Company bucked the trend in the week that saw Milaha (formerly Qatar Navigation) announce that its rights issue is expected to hit the market by the last quarter of this year.

The QE All Share Index (comprising wider constituents) shrank 0.21% with insurance index losing 2.03%, telecom (1.6%), banks and financial services (0.55%) and transport (0.47%); while the indices of industrials, realty and consumer goods rose 1.04%, 0.34% and 0.2%, respectively.

The indices of transport and real estate have lost ytd 8.14% and 2.99%; whereas those of consumer goods, telecom, insurance, industrials and banks and financial services gained 28.12%, 21.95%, 11.86%, 10.56% and 1.98% respectively.

Of the 42 stocks; 16 advanced, while 22 declined and two were unchanged. Two others were not traded in the week that witnessed QE announce that it is gearing up to soon introduce exchange traded funds and establishing a central counterparty, which will enable trading in multi currencies.

Nine of the 12 banks and financial services, three each of the eight consumer goods and the five insurers, two each of eight industrials, the two telecom and the three transport, and one of the four real estate stocks close lower in the week that saw Katara Hospitality purchase two premium Doha-based assets owned by Barwa Real Estate.

Market capitalisation shrank 0.65% or about QR3bn to QR451.40bn with mid and large cap equities notably melting 0.91% and 0.66%; even as small and micro caps gained 1.02% and 0.45% respectively in the week that saw a Qatar Financial Centre Authority survey which said the Gulf insurance industry us not expected to see major consolidation over the next two years due to “comfortable” capitalisation of domestic insurance companies and “little” shareholder pressure.

Mid and large cap stocks have, however, fallen ytd 5.03% and 4.11%; while micro and small caps rose 15.01% and 8.81% respectively.

Foreign institutions turned bearish amid their lower exposure as they were net sellers to the tune of 2.77% against net buyers of 9.01% the previous week.

A much lower 8.69% of them bought equities compared to 21.18% in the week ended May 24 and a marginally lower 11.46% of them offloaded against 12.17%.

However, domestic institutions turned bullish as they were net buyers to the extent of 3.28% compared with net sellers of 6.91% the previous week.

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