30/01/2010 00:00 AST
Small cap and industrial equities largely came under severe selling pressure in Qatar’s bourse, which sank to a 27-week low during the week that ended on Thursday.
Foreign institutions turned into profit booking and Qatari retail investors continued to be net sellers albeit with lesser intensity as the 20-stock benchmark settled 2.66% lower at 6,591.98 points in the week that saw oil market drifting low, apprehensive of further monetary tightening by energy-hungry China.
The market is down 5.28% year-to-date (YTD) mainly on services and industrial stocks.
Selling pressure was also perceptible in large and micro cap equities in the review week that featured Qatar Shipping entering to time charter with Industries Qatar (IQ) subsidiary Qatar Fertilisers.
The market breadth was skewed towards losers despite a robust buying support from foreign retail investors in the week that saw Qatar Steel entrusting Austria’s Inteco with a project to upgrade its arc furnace.
Among the shakers were IQ, United Development Company, Doha Bank, QNB, Qatar Islamic Bank and Qatar Insurance Company, even as Commercialbank (Cb), Qatar Telecom and Qatar Electricity and Water bucked the trend.
Of the 44 stocks; only 12 gained, while 29 declined, one was unchanged and two were not traded in the week.
Seven of the nine lenders, two of the five insurers, five of the seven industries and 15 of the 23 services stocks closed lower in the week that saw Qatar Central Bank asserting that the economy could grow 16% in 2010 fiscal.
The indices of industry, services, lenders and insurance fell 7.5%, 1.92%, 1.45% and 1.29% respectively in the review week. Stocks of industry, services, insurance and banks & financial institution have lost YTD 10.02%, 8.88%, 4.67% and 2.43% respectively.
Market capitalisation plunged 3.62% to QR372.81bn as small, large, micro and mid cap stocks fell 7.20%, 3.11%, 2.17% and 1.51% respectively in the review week.
Small, large, micro and mid cap equities have fallen YTD 6.14%, 5.58%, 4.05% and 3.83% respectively.
The bourse’s price-earning ratio, a measure of expensiveness, was 11.38 times as on January 28 compared with 7.1 times in the comparable period in the previous year.
The price-to-book value was 2.01 times at the end of last week of January against 1.5 in the year-ago period.
Foreign institutions turned profit takers amid lower exposure as they were net sellers to the tune of 5.32% against net buyers of 0.69% in the previous week.
A lower 25.02% of them bought equities compared with 34.4% in the week January 21 and a lower 30.34% sold against 33.71%.
Local institutions were however increasingly bullish on their higher exposure as net buying rose to 5.77% from 2.13% in the previous week.
A much higher 22.5% of them were into buying against 12.65% in the week ended January 21 and a higher 16.73% were into selling compared with 10.52%.
Qatari retail investors’ bearish grip rather slackened on their lower exposure as net selling fell to 1.64% from 3.86% in the previous week.
A marginally lower 36.37% of them were into buying compared with 36.64% in the week ended January 21 and a lower 38.01% were into selling against 40.50%.
Non-Qatari individual investors were however increasingly bullish as their net buying rose to 1.18% from 1.05% in the previous week.
A marginally lower 16.11% of them purchased stocks against 16.31% in the week ended January 21 and a marginally lower 14.93% sold compared with 15.26%.
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