DOHA: Qatar stocks rose to fresh highs yesterday, ahead of Monday’s upgrade of the market to Emerging Market status by S&P Dow Jones.
The bourse’s main index jumped by 1.31 percent to close at a record 14,350 points on robust buying support from local retail investors and foreign institutions.
The investors gained QR10bn in a single day trade as the market cap surged to QR762bn from the previous trading session’s QR752.
Standard & Poor’s Dow Jones announced that it will upgrade the classification of the Qatari market from frontier to emerging market status with effect from Monday, September 22, 2014. The weight of the Qatari market in the international BMI index for emerging markets would be 0.9 percent.
“The development will open the door to additional investments by global portfolios in the shares of Qatari companies which would in turn benefit from these investments. This will also have a positive impact across the various economic sectors of the country and will bolster the reputation of the Qatari market as a safe and stable investment environment”, Rashid bin Ali Al Mansoori, CEO of Qatar Stock Exchange, said yesterday.
The largest percentage gainer on QE yesterday was Ooredoo, up 3.41 percent. Banking major QNB gained 2.21percent.
Ezdan Holding, which is scheduled to be included on QE index with effect from October 1, 2014, jumped by 2.51 percent. Mazaya Qatar, another stock to be included on the index, gained 0.40 percent. QE’s total traded value increased to QR934m from Wednesday’sQR470m. Total traded volume surged to 28 million shares from 9 million.
The index gained 261.68 points or 1.86 percent in the past week. Market capitalisation rose by 2 percent compared to the previous week. Ooredoo and International Islamic were the top gainers of the week.
Total trading value during the week decreased by 9.94 percent to QR3.67bn. Trading volume decreased by 3.04 percent to 80 million shares, while the number of transactions fell by 5.23 percent to reach 33,6775 transactions as compared to 35,532 transactions in the previous week.
Barring, transportation sector, the entire sector indices entered green territory during the past week, with the telecom surging the most by 5.73 percent. The banks and financial services sector led trading value, while the real estate sector led the trading volume.
The banks and financial Services sector led trading umber of transaction, accounting for 36.15 percent of the total number of transactions during the week.
The Ezdan Holding Group led trading value, followed by International Islamic and Masraf Al Rayan. Of the 43 listed companies, 31 ended higher during the past week, while 12 fell.
The Peninsula
