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Satyendra Pathak
Doha
Qatari stocks regained upward trend with impressive gains during last week's trade that saw foreign institutional investors going on a buying spree.
The Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) main index increased 361.79 points, or 4.07 percent, during the week to close at 9,242.30 points.
Market capitalisation increased by 4.02 percent to QR511.5 billion against QR491.8 billion at the end of the previous trading week.
Foreign institutions remained bullish with net buying of QR705 million against net buying of QR829.8 million in the previous week.
Foreign retail investors, however, remained bearish with net selling of QR61.4 million against net selling of QR17.2 million in the previous week.
According to QNB Financial Services (QNBFS), foreign institutions bought on a net basis Qatari equities worth $900 million since the beginning of 2018.
Qatari institutions remained bearish with net selling of QR202.5 million against net selling of QR612.8 million in the previous week.
Qatari retail investors also remained bearish with net selling of QR441.2 million against net selling of QR199.9 million in the previous week.
Trading value during the week decreased by 59.06 percent to reach QR2.4 billion against QR5.8 billion in the previous week.
The banks and financial services sector led the trading value during the week, accounting for 52.96 percent of the total value. The industrial sector was the second biggest contributor to the overall trading value, accounting for 13.85 percent.
Qatar National Bank (QNB) was the top value traded stock during the week with total traded value of QR711.16 million.
Trading volume decreased by 37.73 percent to reach 62.1 million shares against 99.7 million shares in the previous week. The banks and financial services sector led the trading volume, accounting for 29.24 percent, followed by the transportation sector which accounted for 25.01 percent of the overall trading volume. Qatar Gas Transport Company (Nakilat) was the top volume traded stock during the week with 15.4 million shares.
The number of transactions also decreased by 23.04 percent to reach 29,358 against 38,149 in the previous week.
Qatar Insurance Company was the best performing stock for the week with a gain of 19.34 percent on 3.9 million shares traded. On the other hand, Qatar Navigation was the worst performing stock for the week with a decline of 5.24 percent on 91,200 shares traded.
Industries Qatar (IQC), Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) and QNB were the primary contributors to the weekly index gains.
IQ was the biggest contributor to the index's weekly increase, adding 75.59 points to the index. QIB was the second biggest contributor to the mentioned gains, tacking on 66.0 points to the index.
QNB contributed 52.69 points to the index. However, Qatar Navigation deleted 14.61 points from the index.
Of the 45 listed companies, 32 companies ended the week higher. While nine stocks declined, there was no change in the share prices of the remaining four stocks.
The week also saw all sector indices close in the positive territory. The insurance sector index, which gained 12.46 percent, was the best performing sector index for the week. The telecom sector also made an impressive gain of 8.79 percent to lift the main index higher.
