Dubai: The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) reported a 21 per cent decrease in the first half of the year as revenues tumbled.
The DFM reported a net profit of Dh65.1 million in the first half to June compared to Dh82.8 million in the same period last year. Total revenues came in at Dh163.5 million from January through June compared to Dh182.4 million.
The net profit of the second quarter of 2019 reached Dh37 million, a 9 per cent increase compared to Dh33.9 million.
During the first six months of 2019, the DFM trading value fell to Dh25 Billion, a 31.5 per cent decrease compared to the corresponding period of 2018.
“The decline in DFM’s trading value echoes the prevailing trend of international exchanges during the first half of the year, as 74 per cent of the global exchanges registered a decline in their traded value during the first five months of this year compared to the same period of 2018,” Essa Kazim, Chairman of the Dubai Financial Market Company (PJSC) said in a statement.
The DFM General Index advanced 5 per cent in the first half of the year, and “we believe that this reasonable growth is a good indication considering the down trend that prevailed in most of exchanges globally, as 47 exchanges, representing two thirds of the members of the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) have witnessed a decline in their indices,” he added.
“We are looking forward to see this good indication gaining further momentum during the coming period considering DFM’s world-class infrastructure and lucrative opportunities supported by the national economy’s dynamism and good growth rates,” Kazim said.
The DFM attracted 904 new investors, including 90 institutions, lifting its investor base to 844 thousand investors. Institutions’ ownership reached 83.6 pe rcent of the Market Capitalization with 52.3 per cent share of trading. Foreign investors maintained their active presence with 50 per cent of trading and 17.5 per cent ownership of the market capitalisation.
