Doha: Qatar Exchange added 85.01 points, or 0.77, advance to 11,134.70 points from 11,049.69 yesterday.
The volume of the shares traded fell to 9,438,066 from 10,461,921 on Tuesday and the value of shares increased to QR518,447,226.06 from QR502,812,765.05 on Tuesday.
Among the top gainers were Commercial Bank of Qatar which was up 0.56 percent to QR71.40, Qatar Insurance gained 4.59 percent to QR82.00, Electricity and Water added 1.06 percent to QR181.00 and Vodafone Qatar was up by 0.80 percent to QR11.31. The Banking and Financial sector index added 0.21 percent while Consumer Goods and Services sector index lost 0.13 percent. The industrial sector gained 0.93 points while insurance sector was up 3.17 percent.
Meanwhile, other regional bourses rebounded yesterday on positive queues from global markets; Dubai, which posted the biggest gains, was also boosted by good fourth-quarter earnings and contract announcements from the real estate sector.
Dubai’s index surged 1.7 percent to a new multi-year closing high of 3,875 points, confirming a break above technical resistance at 3,807 points, the 50 percent retracement of its fall from the 2008 peak.
Union Properties, which this week posted an eightfold rise in annual profits, gained 9.8 percent on Wednesday. Another developer, Deyaar, rose 4.8 percent after its annual profit quadrupled.
Construction firm Drake and Scull jumped 6.9 percent after the company said it had won a contract worth SR328m ($87.5m) to do mechanical, electrical and plumbing works at King Saud University in Riyadh.
Other markets in the region posted more modest gains amid slower newsflow, but reflected a general improvement in investor sentiment, said Sebastien Henin, portfolio manager at The National Investor. “I guess if we don’t have a major international crisis in fixed income, currencies or equities we can imagine that regional equity markets will outperform both developed and emerging markets,” he said.
Stock markets in the Middle East are less vulnerable to large-scale changes in risk appetite simply because there is little foreign investment, he noted.
Abu Dhabi’s index rose 0.6 percent. Shares in Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank surged 6.3 percent to their highest level in more than six years after the bank posted a forecast-beating 41 percent fourth-quarter profit jump.
Saudi Arabia’s benchmark rose 0.3 percent with gains across different sectors. Almarai, the Gulf’s biggest dairy company, was among the top gainers, rising 4.2 percent after it announced the launch of a new poultry facility.
Agencies
