Dubai
Volumes tumbled by more than 70 per cent on Monday on the Dubai Financial Market as markets went into a holiday mood.
Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul recovered from an early low.
Traded volume fell to Dh303 million on Monday from over Dh1.3 billion last week. The Dubai Financial Market General Index closed 0.64 per cent lower at 3,531.79, managing to stay above the keenly-watched 3,500 mark.
“People are in holiday season in the US and Europe, and there is also lack of news and even the global markets have been slowing down in the last 10 days or so,” said Ahmad Waheed, Vice President — Institutional Desk at Menacorp.
“The good sign is that the market is going down with very low volumes. Going ahead, things will be a bit slow,” Waheed said.
Gulf Finance House closed flat at Dh1.90, and was the most actively traded stock on the bourse. “GFH has been trading sideways. So you can buy the stock below Dh1.89 for a target of Dh1.95,” Waheed said. Union Properties closed less than 1 per cent lower at Dh1.11. Dubai Islamic Bank closed 0.50 per cent lower at Dh5.54.
Insurance sector witnessed some activity. Takaful Emarat, Methaq, Dar a Takaful, Aman witnessed buying activity. Out of 35 stocks traded on the bourse, shares of 22 firms fell, while 7 rose. The rest remained steady.
In Abu Dhabi, the general index closed 0.38 per cent higher at 4,479.27.
About 4.91 million shares got traded on First Gulf Bank, its highest in nearly a week. Other banking stocks closed almost flat.
The Tadawul index was 0.48 per cent lower at 7,103.04.
“Generally, there is a slowdown in global markets which is affecting the region along with Saudi Arabia,” Waheed said.
In other Gulf markets, the Qatar exchange index closed 0.47 per cent higher at 10,272.37. The Muscat Securities MSM 30 index closed 0.02 per cent higher at 5,729.38. The Kuwait Stock Exchange index closed 0.11 per cent higher at 5,657.13.
