DOHA: Bucking the regional trend, Qatar stocks rose by 1.34 percent yesterday to settle at 12,717 points on banking and industrials support.
The Qatar Exchange (QE) index outperformed the regional bourses as Dubai index finished flat and Abu Dhabi dropped 0.2 percent. Kuwait, Saudi, Oman and Bahrain were marginally up.
QE’s main index was lifted mainly on the buying interests of local retail investors. Foreign institutional investors continued to be bearish.
All the sector indices entered green, with telecoms and insurance indices rising the most. Telecoms rose 3.53 percent, while insurance sector edged 1.98 percent up. Real estate added 1.75 percent, while industrials gained 1.05 percent. Banking sector was up by 0.63 percent. However, total traded value and volume declined to QR640m and 17 million shares from the previous session’s QR669m and 20 million shares, respectively. Meanwhile, analysts noted that foreign institutional activities will be key to Qatar’s market performance. So far, year-to-date, FI investors have pumped in $1.87bn as compared to $700m in net equity buying in 2013, QNBFS noted Monday.
The Peninsula
