It was a year of resilience for the stock market of Qatar, which has bounced back from the lows caused by the outbreak of COVID-19. Stock market investor will not forget this year due to the volatility caused by COVID-19 outbreak, but they will also remember this year for the strong recovery shown by the Qatari stocks.
The Qatar Stock Exchange (QE) Index has surged around 2,375 points or 29 percent since March when it had declined to 8,160 points -the lowest point of the year.
The QE index gained 34.56 points or 0.33 percent to close at 10,534.65 points yesterday.
After remaining volatile during March, April and May due to slowdown in economic activities due to coronavirus outbreak, the market started moving on the path of recovery from June onwards. The recovery gained further pace in October and November helped by favourable market-moving news from global, regional and local front.
In the second week of November, the QE Index had jumped over surged by over 320 points buoyed by outcome of US Presidential elections. News about the success of COVID-19 vaccines continued during the months which played important role in propelling the market. Another important development was the announcement regarding resolving the Gulf crisis that boosted investor’s confidence.
All these positive news had a positive impact on the market that resulted into over 620 points gains for the QE Index in November, making it the best monthly performance since the start of this year. The stock market continued its winning streak in this month also.
Qatari shares reached a new milestone in the first week of December as the QE Index surged 156.62 points to close at 10,622.26 points, which was a 10-month high level for the index.
The index had started the year on positive note as it had closed on January 2, which was the first trading session of the year, at 10,511 points against the closing of 10,425 points on December 31, which was the last trading day of 2019.
The Index continued its upward journey during in the coming days and closed at 10,712 points on January 19, which was the highest level of the year.
In yesterday’s trade, the volume of shares traded decreased to 82.98 million yesterday from 101.73 million on Tuesday and the value of shares decreased to QR258m from QR258.9m on Tuesday.
