Dubai: 58-year-old stock market trader Juman Belqaizi Alfalasi is a dejected man. He lost almost all his money in the market crash last November and December, following which he liquidated all his positions.

He has reinvested only 20 per cent back into stocks and put rest of all his money in other businesses. He has only watched the markets over the past six weeks.

“We lost in many IPOs [initial public offerings], because we paid more than Dh1 for some and just got 70 fills,” said Alfalasi, keenly watching the stock price movements as he spoke to Gulf News.

IPOs sucked out the cash out from the market more than Dh20-25 billion, resulting in less money in the hands of investors, he said.

“the If market has volumes of more than Dh1 billion, we will come because there are some other investors with us. Mood among investors is very bad now. Most of them are preferring to keep it as cash due to bad sentiment in the market. Money should roll, only then we will profit,” said Alfalasi, who has been trading in stocks since the DFM’s inception.

Another trader, Kishore Kumar, feels that if volumes continue to remain low for some more time, the index may see more downside. “Most of the foreign investors have exited from the market. There are no big buyers in the market. We are small retailers, we can’t move the market up or down,” said Kumar.

“Everybody is nervous. There is no liquidity in the market, and this does not come back then even retailers would start selling. To remain in the market without any volume is risky. The market is moving in a very tight range. The problem is if you buy you cannot sell, if you sell you cannot buy back,” he added.

Kishore Kumar has lost about 40-50 per cent of his portfolio in the last 3 months. “We are holding the positions in loss. We try to sell and buy back to reduce our cost, but still we are in a huge loss,” said Kishore Kumar.

Pockets of value

Investors think there are still pockets of value left in certain shares, which are available at fair value, according to them.

An investor, who wished not to be named, said he bought 1 million shares of RAK Properties at 75 fills, and also purchased Air Arabia. “Even the banks won’t give you that much of interest compared to what these companies pay as dividends,” he added.

Air Arabia’s stock has gained 12 per cent since last year.