By Satish Kanady
DOHA: Qatar bourse extended its losing streak to fifth consecutive session yesterday pulling back the index down from the high 14,000 levels to finish at 13,874 points, or down 0.41 percent.
The benchmark index lost 475.53 points, or 3.31 percent during the past week. The market lost QR23bn during the past five sessions as the market cap fell by 3.06 percent to reach QR739bn at the end of the week.
Blue chips were the biggest drag on the QE during the past week. In a broad selling, each of the seven sector indices was in negative territory, with the banks and financial services sector performing the worst, down by 4.07 percent.
“A number of overvalued cases exist in the market today. Market experts are advising investors against holding concentrated portfolios where such stocks could have a large impact on their portfolio returns”, a top Asset Manager told The Peninsula yesterday.
Among the banking stocks, QIB lost the most, by shedding 5.83 percent. While QNB plunged 4.69 percent, International Islamic edged 4.33 percent down.
Al Rayan retreated by 2.61 percent. The total value of banking stocks decreased to QR1.04bn at the end of the past week from QR1.38bn from the previous week.
Total trading value during the week decreased by 18.04 percent to reach QR2.7bn compared to the previous week’s QR3.3bn.
Trading volume decreased by 17.26 percent to reach 66 million shares, as against 80 million shares. The total number of transactions fell by 23.46 percent during the week.
The banks and financial services sector led trading value during the week, accounting for 38.37 percent of the total trading value, followed by real estate and the industrials sector. The real estate sector led trading volume accounting for 53.46 percent of the total trading volume.
The banks and financial services sector led trading number of transactions accounting for 33.38 percent of the total number of transactions.
Of the 43 listed companies, just two companies ended higher the past week, while 39 fell and two remained unchanged.
The Ezdan Holding Group, which is to be included in the index starting October, led trading value. Ezdan accounted for 19.81 percent of the total trading value, followed by Masraf Al Rayan and QNB.
The banking and financial sector was the single worst performing sector yesterday. The sector lost 0.69 percent yesterday with QIB dipping 1.57 percent. Of the 43 traded stocks, 13 advanced and 26 declined, while 4 remained unchanged.
The Peninsula
