Foreign institutions’ appetite for quality stocks gave a bullish momentum to the Qatari bourse, lifting it beyond the 7,000 mark in the week ended Thursday.
Banks and industrial stocks particularly came in for strong attention which saw the 20-stock benchmark gain 1.12% to 7,029.45 points in the week.
Al khaliji bank had said mid-week that the due diligence report on the International Bank of Qatar was expected time within the next eight weeks.
Large and micro cap stocks were favourites in the market, which is up 1.01% year-to-date (ytd).
Commercialbank (Cb), Qatar Islamic Bank, Doha Bank, Industries Qatar (IQ), Qatar Telecom, National Leasing and Ezdan Real Estate were among the prime gainers during the week that saw Doha Bank announcing that its subsidiary Doha Brokerage and Financial Services will establish an institutional desk in Mumbai.
Both local and foreign retail investors as well as foreign institutions were however profit takers in the review week that saw Qatar Statistical Authority’s data showing that Qatar’s inflation fell year-on-year 2.8% in June mainly on a double-digit correction in rents.
Insurance index gained the maximum of 2.81%, followed by industry (1.76%), banks and financial institution (1.4%) and services (0.20%) in the review week that saw QNB receiving approval from Lebanese banking regulator to open a full-service branch there.
Stocks of insurance and lenders are up ytd 39.59% and 7.44%, while those of industry and services are down 12.52% and 5.21% respectively.
Of the 42 stocks; 23 gained, while 15 declined, three were unchanged and one was not traded in the week that featured Masraf Al Rayan’s investment subsidiary announcing its three sector-specific funds that would primarily be investing in GCC as well as outside, including Libya and South East Asia.
Five of the nine lenders, three of the five insurers, four of the seven industries and 11 of the 21 services stocks closed higher in the review week that saw Qatar Insurance Company’s plans to establish a separate life and medical insurance subsidiary.
Market capitalisation expanded 1.66% or more than QR6bn to QR383.50bn mainly on large and micro cap equities, which rose 1.26% and 1.06% respectively.
Micro, mid and small cap equities have gained ytd 12.60%, 3.40% and 1.93% respectively, even as large caps fell 5.66%.
The bourse’s price-earning ratio, a measure of expensiveness, was 11.19 times as on July 29 compared with 10.38 times in the comparable period in the previous year.[Read More]