DUBAI: Qatar’s bourse continued to conquer new highs yesterday while markets in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia recovered from the previous day’s profit-taking.
The Qatar benchmark rose 0.6 percent to a new all-time closing high of 13,067 points. The measure closed just below the 2005 intra-day high of 13,069 but set a new intra-day peak of 13,080 points earlier in the day.
The volume of the shares traded was up to 21,506,017 from 16,410,837 on Sunday and the value of shares increased to QR1,033,975,677.08 from QR781,564,922.40 Sunday.
Among the top gainers were Qatar Islamic Bank which was up 2.36 percent to QR90.90, Vodafone Qatar gained 2.03 percent to QR18.61, International Islamic Bank added 1.72 percent to QR88.80 and Masraf Al Rayan up by 1.32 percent to QR50.
Ali Adou, portfolio manager at The National Investor, said the two major factors driving growth in Qatar’s market were valuations and the performance of the UAE markets, especially Dubai, which this month will, together with Qatar, move to the emerging market index compiled by MSCI.
Although Qatar trades close to the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) average in terms of price-to-earnings ratio, the massive spending planned by its government could justify higher multiples, Adou said.
Qatar plans to boost government spending by 18 percent to QR210.6bn ($57.8bn) in the 2013-14 fiscal year as it implements a large-scale infrastructure building programme in preparation to host the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament. And, since MSCI announced the index upgrade last June, Dubai has outperformed Qatar by about 86 percent, he said, prompting a catch-up move.
MSCI will announce the names of stocks from both countries that it will include in the index late on Wednesday and the adjustment takes effect at the end of this month. “I think the international investors are positioning themselves in Qatar (ahead of the MSCI upgrade),” Adou said.
Dubai’s bourse closed up 1.5 percent after diving as low as 2.5 percent early in the session.
QNA/Reuters
