The Qatari Exchange index fell by a marginal 0.06% yesterday, dragged down by Increased foreign institutional selling. The 20-stock benchmark settled lower at 6,953.34 points.

Sector-wise, the index of lenders fell 0.64%, while those of industry and services gained 0.82% and 0.81% respectively. Insurance index was unchanged.

Of the 44 stocks; 24 gained, while 12 declined, five were unchanged and three were not traded.

Market capitalisation fell 0.32% to QR321.61bn with large cap equities dropping 1.07%, even as micro caps gained 3.27%.

Notable shakers included Commercialbank, Doha Bank, Qatar Electricity and Water, Ezdan Real Estate and Vodafone Qatar, even as Industries Qatar and Qatar Telecom stocks bucked the trend.

A total of 9.98mn shares worth QR246.51mn changed hands across 5,655 transactions. Volumes, value and deals were down 23%, 26% and 14% respectively from the previous day.

Insurance sector saw its trading volume plunge 33% to 100,000 shares, value by 27% to QR6.32mn and transactions by 21% to 95.

Within services segment, trading volume fell 27% to 6.78mn shares, value by 38% to QR126.49mn and deals by 24% to 3,218.

The banks and financial institutions sector trading volume dipped 23% to 2.19mn stocks and value by 11% to QR83.24mn whereas transactions gained 4% to 1,573.

The industry sector however saw its trading volume expand 34% to 910,000mn shares but value fell 9% to QR30.36mn. Deals were up 14% to 769.

Opening strong at 6,966.17 against the previous day’s close of 6,957.60 points, the market was however on a fall for the 45 minutes to reach a low of 6.912.24 points mainly on selling at the banking and industry counters.

Thereafter, buying pressure was witnessed for the rest of the session but overall the index settled four points lower.

Foreign institutions were increasingly profit takers as their net selling (in terms of value) surged to 5.35% from 4.05% on Wednesday.

Although a higher 13.55% of them bought equities compared with 12.66% in the previous trading day, a higher 18.9% sold against 16.71%.

Local institutions continued to be bullish but with lesser vigour as their net buying fell to 5.42% from 7.94% on Wednesday.

A lower 20.01% of them were into buying against 21.31% in the previous day, while a higher 14.59% were into selling compared with 13.37%.

Qatari retail investors turned marginally bullish that they were net buyers to the tune of 0.2% against net sellers of 2.98% on Wednesday.

A higher 46.31% of them purchased stocks compared with 45.96% in the previous day, while a lower 46.11% offloaded against 48.94%.

Non-Qatari retail investors’ bearish grip slackened as their net selling fell to 0.26% from 0.9% on Wednesday.

A marginally higher 20.14% of them picked up equities against 20.08% in the previous day, while a marginally lower 20.4% offloaded compared with 20.98%.

Actively traded stocks (in terms of volume) were Vodafone Qatar (1.99mn shares); Mawashi (1.68mn); Nakilat (1.16mn); Masraf Al Rayan (1.13mn) and Cb (599,724).