FIIs continue buying spree on QE

06/01/2011 00:00 AST

Foreign institutional investors continue with their buying spree on the Qatari bourse, pushing its index literally up by the day. They booked profit on Tuesday, though, taking a reprieve for a while, so to say.

Yesterday, the value of their stock buys totaled a relatively massive QR139m while their sell value was almost half.

On the whole, the foreign institutional as well as retail investors accounted for 37.36 percent of total buys on the exchange, while their sell percentage was low at 25.17.

Compared to this, local small as well as corporate investors sold more stocks (74.83 percent) than they bought (62.63 percent).

Qatari corporate investors chose to book profits more than their retail counterparts, figures released by Qatar Exchange (QE), the local bourse, revealed.

The 20-stock index of the market jumped marginally to 8,998.2 with a 25 points rise at the close of trading, and the surge was mainly due to strong net buying support from foreign institutions, analysts said.

“A major highlight of trading by foreign institutions is that, aside from the fact that they are entering the market in a big way, they are investing over the long term,” said an analyst not wanting to be identified.

“They are targeting some most prized shares and they are staying put,” the analyst added talking of foreign institutions, which, apparently, include some top Western pension funds.

Insurance stocks did quite well yesterday with overall, some 17 of the 43 listed entities ending higher at the close of trading.

The market capitalization of the bourse keeps soaring as it inched up beyond the psychologically critical level of QR460bn to over QR462bn at the end of trading yesterday.

Analysts see the current trend continuing at least until the listed companies begin reporting their financials. “We foresee some stability after that since local liquidity might flow into other sectors as well, including real estate, construction and industry,” said the analyst.

The net profits of listed firms for 2010, at the end of which Qatar was awarded the coveted 2022 FIFA bid, are expected to breach all previous records, hope analysts.

The Peninsula