Doha: The Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) index ended the current week’s trading with an increase of 1.12 percent, gaining 117.51 points to its balance, thus increasing to 10,581.66 points compared to last week’s closing.

In his remarks to Qatar News Agency (QNA), financial analyst Youssef Bouhlaiqa attributed the market’s rise this week to a number of factors, mainly the Qatar Central Bank’s (QCB) 55 basis points cut in interest rates, QNB Group’s decision to buyback the bank’s shares worth up to QR2.9bn, in addition to semi-annual dividends, as well as anticipating the third quarter earnings results of the current year.

The QSE index continued its upward trend for the fifth consecutive week, supported by a collective rise in sectors, led by the real estate sector, which surged by 5.49 percent, followed by the communications sector, which rose by 1.54 percent, banks and financial services by 1.09 percent, insurance by 1.02 percent, services and consumer goods by 1.01 percent, transportation by 0.76 percent, and industry by 0.46 percent.

This week saw liquidity levels of QR2.055, compared to QR2.118bn last week. The trading volume during the current week reached 983,917,021 shares, with a number of deals reaching 63,118 deals across all sectors.

The financial analyst emphasized that the decision to cut interest rates will increase the pace of activity in financial markets, by increasing cash flows to the stock exchanges, in addition to the fact that it will lead to reducing the cost of financing, which will stimulate the activity of companies in various sectors, expecting the QSE general index to rise to levels of 11,000 points.

In the same context, three Qatari banks signed a billion-dollar financing deal on Wednesday, as Ooredoo Group announced the signing of a historic financing agreement worth QR2bn to support the expansion of its data center network, which will allow for a significant increase in capacity and the modernization of its data centers.

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