DOHA: Among the seven sector indices on Qatar Exchange (QE), the fastest-appreciating sector is insurance. Though the five-stock insurance sector represents just 3.1 percent of the market, the sector grew by 74.2 percent year-to-date.
Market capitalisation stayed concentrated in banks and financial services, which at 39.3 percent of the entire market, grew by 40.3 percent year-to-date. The next largest shares of the market were held by industrials (31.1 percent) and real estate (11.1 percent).Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding Co, the newest stock traded, is the one gaining the most year-to-date (220.5 percent), the updated Qatar Economic Outlook suggests.
QE’s benchmark index has outperformed broader global indices such as the S&P 100 since November 2013. It has also performed better than other markets in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, apart from Dubai (up 38.2 percent year-to-date). Regional markets saw brief reversals in June and in October, when they were struck by commodity-market volatility, given the substantial presence of energy-focused companies, tapering gains.
Both the trailing price-to-earnings ratio (17.5) and the price-to-book ratio (2.7) of the QE Index had the best and second-best performance among GCC markets. The Peninsula
