Global launches indices of Doha Securities Market

Mr. Omar M. El-Quqa, Executive Vice President at Global said, "As Global persists on searching for and studying the major requirements that fulfill the needs of GCC stock markets in general, we believe portfolio managers need more benchmarks to follow the flourishing Qatari stock Market."

"Global has already highlighted the flourishing economy and financial situation that the Qatari market is currently witnessing. This development in the Qatari market caused great attraction from investors all over the GCC and the opportunities which are thrown open by the capital markets there," he added

Mr. El_Quqa pointed that the indices launch comes in-line with the Doha Securities Market opening up to non-Qatari investors on April 3, and after implementation of the Law (2) for the year 2005, which regulates the investment of foreign capital in the economy.

He said, "The need for an index to act as a benchmark for portfolio managers interested in such stocks, in evaluating their performance has become necessary. Hence, Global composed a special index to track the performance of the Qatari Market in General under the name of "Global Qatari General Index."

Such an index should help in enhancing the market, as it will work side-by-side on developing the interest of foreign investors and direct them towards the Qatari stocks, he affirmed.

Global Indices of Doha Securities Market comprises of all stocks listed on the Doha Securities Market, currently 31. Besides the General Index, Four sectors indices have been built to track the performance of each of the market sectors individually, and they are; The Banking Index, Insurance Index, Industrial Index and Services Index. In the future, newly listed companies on the stock market will be added under their related index on listing date to ensure that the index reflects the actual market conditions.

The index is maintained according to a transparent methodology that is consistent with International Finance Corporation (IFC) formula is a 100% market capitalization weighted index.

The base value of both indices is 100, as on December 31, 1999. Adjustments according to corporate actions are made as they occur. The market capitalization of Global Qatari Index is calculated in Qatari Riyal as follows: (Closing price*Outstanding shares).

First four months of the year 2005 performance...
As per table (1) that shows the Global Qatari General Index, Doha stock market achieved great increase during the first quarter of the current year, reaching to 115.81 percent. The market could not sustain this increase and declined 24.25 percent in April, since the opening of the market to non-Qatari investors, to end its first four months of the current year 2005 at 71.66 percent gain.

Since the beginning of the current year up till April end, all market sectors managed to achieve a positive performance. This performance varied between the different sectors. A huge increase has been witnessed by the Industrial sector which has outperformed the market index by 124.45 percent after achieving an increase of 160.84 percent in the first four months ending in April 2005. This increase is due to the noticeable increase achieved in the prices of all six companies listed under the industrial sector, compared to their 2004 year end closing prices. For the same period, growth achieved by the Banking, Insurance and Services sectors reached 56.95%, 39.28% and 28.08% respectively.

The industrial sector accounts for the highest percentage of market capitalization in the DSM, equivalent to 34.64 percent, followed by the Banking sector with 32.42 percent of total market capitalization.