Doha: Qatar Exchange index lost 31.15 points, or 0.30 percent, to reach 10,360.02 points yesterday from the previous closing of 10,391.17 points on Thursday.
The volume of traded shares fell to 7,830,646 from Thursday 11,016,813 and the value of shares decreased to QR289,446,816.37 from QR337,670,116.15 on Thursday.
Among the top losers were Electricity and Water whose share down 1.11 percent to QR178.00, Doha Bank lost 0.86 percent to QR57.50, Salam International fell 2.70 percent to QR12.99 and Masraf Al Rayan decreased by 1.25 percent to QR31.55.
The Ban lost 0.18 percent points while Consumer Goods and Services sector index dropped 0.03 percent. The industrial sector fell 0.25 percent while insurance sector lost 0.19 percent.
Meanwhile, other regional shares were mixed yesterday with some margin calls weighing on Dubai’s bourse and investors shifting funds from banks to petrochemical stocks helping Saudi Arabia’s measure snap a three-session losing streak.
Dubai’s measure retreated 0.6 percent, slipping off Thursday’s five-year high and trimming December’s gains to 11.4 percent. Traders expect the trend to be weak until the new year, with little news flow to trigger fresh buying.
“Most brokerage companies are asking clients for margin calls towards the year-end to close their books,” said Hisham Khairy, head of trading for institutional desk at brokerage firm MENA Corp. “There will probably be selling to equalise positions because most of the trading recently was on margin.”
Investors trade on margin, or leverage to increase profit margin and have to close their positions, or sell, to reduce their leverage back to zero.
Shares in small-caps drove a rally in December, the typical target for short-term bets.
Gulf Navigation, one such stock, fell 3.6 percent as investors booked recent gains. Union Properties shed 1.7 percent.
Abu Dhabi’s benchmark climbed 0.6 percent, a new five-year high, and extending 2013 gains to 60 percent.
Lagging banks helped boost the bourse; National Bank of Abu Dhabi climbed 2.7 percent to take the year’s gains to 40 percent. Dana Gas rose 2.3 percent to its highest since January 2010. The stock extends gains since saying it received a $53m payment out of the total of $330m owed to it by Egypt.
In Saudi Arabia, petrochemical shares helped lift the market. The sector’s index gained 0.5 percent and agriculture and food sector rose 1.1 percent. Banking shares meanwhile, weighed with the sector falling 0.5 percent, its fifth straight drop since it hit a five-year high last week.
Aside from profit-taking, weak fourth-quarter outlook and unattractive dividends for banks earnings triggered investors to sell shares.
Agencies
