QE index breaks 12,000 barrier, volume doubles

07/04/2014 06:46 AST

Qatari bourse extended its rally for the ninth straight session yesterday to break the psychologically-strong 12,000-mark barrier. The Qatar Exchange index advanced 114.59 points, or 0.96 percent, to close at 12,098.46 points, much closer to the June 2008 levels when the index hit the historic highs of 12,433 points.

Shares traded on the bourse valued at QR1.18bn yesterday, compared to the previous session’s QR720m. The total traded volume doubled to 38 million from 19 million. Market capitalisation surged to QR673bn from QR668bn.

Despite strong selling pressures, individual investors continued to be bullish.“Sentiment is flying extremely high. The budget-driven confidence is strong in the air. The May MSCI upgrade is another driver”, a top market analyst told The Peninsula.

Foreign funds are flowing into Qatar as the QE gets ready for the market upgrade, noted another market expert.

The Investors, Qatari investors group that has announced to disclose its financial results for the Q12014 on April 10, surged 9.86 percent. Vodafone jumped 8.53 percent. Qatar Fuel rose 4.02 percent. Qatar Insurance edged up 4.48 percent and Rayan advanced 2.54 percent. Heavy weight QNB slipped 0.77 percent. Commercial Bank lost 0.30 percent. National Cement dropped 1.54 percent and Bellwether Industries Qatar shed 0.48 percent.

The entire sector indices continued their green rush with consumer goods gaining the most by 3.79 percent, followed by insurance (3.17 percent) and telecom indices (2.07 percent). The banking sector gained 0.30 percent with Islamic Holding and Rayan surging the most. Of the total 12 banking stocks, three dropped.

Industrials advanced 0.72 percent with the Investors gaining the most. Real estate gained 1.25 percent and transportation edged 0.99 percent up.

The market saw a wave of strong gains over the past week, especially after the ‘big number’ budget announcement. Last week, the general index rose 50.5 points by the rate of 4.37 percent. While the share prices of 38 companies rose, the declines were limited to just five companies. All the sectoral indices rose last week, where the telecom sector rose by 5.55 percent followed by the banking sector by 5.29 percent.

The week witnessed market capitalisation rising to QR668.5bn. The Group Securities analysts noted the total trading on the shares of the top 6 companies amounted to about QR1,887.9m representing 47.7 percent of the total trading, where trading on the shares of Barwa topped with the value of QR496.2m, followed by Gulf International worth QR406.2m.

Foreign portfolios were the sole net buyers against other categories where they bought net worth QR340.6m. Qatari portfolios sold net worth QR95.1m and Qatari individuals sold shares worth QR191.8m. Foreign individual investors sold net worth of QR76m. The total capitalisation of all companies combined gained about QR25bn.

The Peninsula