Dubai: Triggered by the consolidation in the UAE equity markets in the backdrop of volatile crude oil prices, a few of the local brokers are trying to give as many options for investors to diversify their portfolios.

The Dubai index, which ended the last year with 12 per cent gains, was once up more than 40 per cent in late November, however massive volatility in crude oil prices shaved off most of its gains, triggering investors to scout for good investment opportunities.

“Equities are not doing that great, but we are not in a situation that we had several years ago, when clients are emptying their accounts. So for us to add more products and more markets to our offerings is a natural development,” Fathi Ben Grira the chief executive officer at top broker Menacorp told Gulf News, adding “it is a request from the clients and makes it a business sense for us.”

Investors have been showing interest to invest in copper, gold, silver, the rupee

in terms of currencies. With growth coming back to US markets, investors are also interested in the world’s biggest economy.

The US gross domestic product expanded at a 2.6 per cent annual pace in the fourth quarter to December after the third quarter’s spectacular 5 per cent rate, government data said late last month.

“All those companies in the United States are household names. Everybody knows IBM, Apple etc. So investors when choose their stocks in the US they are familiar with the stock,” said Grira.

For example, Apple smashed its quarterly forecasts, selling 74.5 million iPhones in its fiscal first quarter ended December 27, compared with a forecast of fewer than 70 million. Revenue rose to $74.6 billion (49 billion pounds) from $57.6 billion a year earlier. Profit of $18 billion was the biggest ever reported by a public company, worldwide, according to S&P analyst Howard Silverblatt.

In European equities, companies which are export oriented could outperform the market as these companies would stand to benefit on margins as euro weakens.

Morgan Stanley cut its estimate of in which the euro will finish 2015 to $1.05 from $1.12 formerly. Bank of America Merrill Lynch sees the euro now falling to $1.10 through the finish of the season, from $1.20 within an earlier forecast, while HSBC Holdings experts cut their year-finish expectation to $1.09 from $1.15.

One stop shop:

“The secret of our business is economies of scale and more and more clients want to deal with a one-stop shop,” said Grira.

“The prices of equity went down, more and more investors are anticipating a rebound. We have investors who are around us are purely interested by other products rather than purely UAE equities that’s why markets like DGCX makes sense for us,” he added.

Menacorp would act as an entry point, and after that the trade would be executed through an executing broker.

Foreign interest in Saudi

Menacorp has been signed by a German bank to trade in all countries in the Gulf including Saudi Arabia, which is due to be opened for foreign investors by April.

Saudi Arabia, which contributes to 50 per cent of the GDP of Middle East and North Africa (Mena) and 50 per cent of market capitalisation of the region, is keen on removing impediments for foreign investors in one of the world’s most-restricted major stock exchanges as it pursues a $130 billion spending plan to boost non-energy industries. The opening up of stock market could boost inflows of up to $40 billion, industry participants say.

“Saudi market is ahead of UAE markets in terms of participation of real economy in the index. We need to include more hospitality, airlines and petrochemical companies,” said Grira.

“We have more and more request from our European clients because of Saudi Arabia, so they would have a new allocation to Saudi and would look at the region more seriously,” he added.

Saudi would also eye a potential upgrade following the reclassification of UAE and Qatar markets to emerging market from frontier markets by the MSCI.