By Satish Kanady
DOHA: Oil worries hammered Qatari stocks yesterday, pushing down the bourse’s benchmark index to a fresh two-year low. Qatar’s benchmark index plummeted 3.09 percent, or 321.96 points, to finish at 10,096.51.
The heavy selloff by local retail investors sent the entire sector indexes, barring transportation, into red. Banking and Insurance sectors were the worst hit. Banking major QNB tumbled 4.6 percent, while QIB and Masraf Al Rayan plunged 4.27 percent and 4.62 percent, respectively.
The selloff hit the energy sensitive stocks like Gulf International and MPHC hard. Gulf International, which was deleted from the MSCI Emerging Market Index from this month, lost 3.52 percent as MPHC fell 3.31 percent. Industries major Industrial Qatar (IQ) plunged 4.94 percent. Qatar Gas Transport Co bucked the trend, rising 1.5 percent.
QE is expected to witness a volatile performance and drops for days or weeks, as investors’ psychological sentiment is affected by reports about global oil prices and US interest rates. “The slight falls by the main index in the past few days were a result of external factors that are not related to the Qatari bourse, however, the index managed to demonstrate a considerable resilience, erasing serious losses,” financial portal Mubasher quoted an analyst as saying.
Elsewhere, Dubai’s index dropped 3 percent and Abu Dhabi stocks 2.4 percent, while Saudi’s index closed down 2.5 percent at 6,991 points. Egyptian stocks fell for a second day, declining 2.5 percent to 6,608 points.
The Peninsula
