Dubai: The UAE’s main equity indices were relatively flat on Monday, one day before Abu Dhabi’s three biggest banks are set to disclose their financial results for 2016.

The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) index inched up 0.34 per cent to 3,678.79.

Trade remained focused on the smaller cap stocks, such as Gulf Finance House, Amanat, Arabtec, and DXB Entertainments, which collectively accounted for 61 per cent of the total Dh900.9 million traded on DFM. This comes one day before Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, and First Gulf Bank are set to report their full-year 2016 earnings.

On Dubai bourse, Aramex share price jumped 8.96 per cent to Dh4.5 after the logistics company reported a 37 per cent year-on-year jump in net profit to Dh426.6 million on Monday.

Sanyalaksna Manibhandu, director of research at the National Bank of Abu Dhabi Securities, said smaller cap stocks could continue to do well this year especially considering the current risk appetite.

“If you look at crude prices, the fact that you had a lot more trade value in November fits in with the fact that people were looking forward to some sort agreement with Opec (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries), and that came about. Then there was another agreement with non-Opec in December, so those two events have underpinned good risk appetite in November, December, and also January,” he said.

Manibhandu said he expected such risk appetite to continue among investors in the UAE as long as oil producers comply with production cuts and crude prices remain where they are.

Brent crude prices were trading at around $55 (Dh202) a barrel on Monday, with the lowest Brent prices in January at around $53.

As for sentiment, investors in the UAE seemed to be more focused on local results and policies rather than news coming out of the US and executive orders signed by President Donald Trump.

“I think the macro picture still matters, but the macro that people are looking at is about whether there will be fiscal stimulus from the US after all this talk on spending money on infrastructure. The other thing is interest rates. There are central bank meetings this week, and if there is talk about interest rates, that will definitely have an impact on stocks, especially banks,” Manibhandu said.

Central banks around the world, including the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan, will be holding meetings this week, though experts do not expect to see much change in policies by any of them.

Elsewhere, the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) inched up 0.09 per cent to reach 4,590.88, while Saudi’s Tadawul index slid 0.71 per cent to 7,132.29. Meanwhile, the Qatar Stock Exchange index fell 1.26 per cent to 10,747.83, as the Bahrain All Share Index rose 0.13 per cent to 1,304.06.

Of the 38 stocks traded on DFM, 22 went up, 11 went down, and five remained unchanged. Of the 33 stocks traded on ADX, 17 advanced, 10 declined, and six remained flat.