Dubai, May 25, 2015: Dubai Financial Market (DFM) today announced that it plans to implement an enhanced Pre-closing session arrangement as well as Trading At Last session (TAL) as of Thursday, June 4, 2015. The reshaped Pre-closing session will provide a defined structure organizing processes of order input, order cancellation and matching while the five minutes long TAL enables investors to place their orders according to the closing price (Theoretical Auction Price) calculated by the system.

It is noteworthy that DFM initially has adopted the Pre-closing Session in May 2014.

The new arrangements are the outcome of comprehensive discussions with various market participants as part of DFM's constant efforts to further enhance market infrastructure in line with the international best practices.

As part of the new enhancements, the Pre-closing Session will run between 13:45 and 13:55:20 and will include three stages namely; the order input period, the no cancellation period and the matching period. As the case since this mechanism was initially introduced, the pre-closing session will be an order accumulation period as brokers and investors can enter orders without being executed until the pre-closing matching, however the new arrangement will include a defined timeframe that organizes the processes of placing new orders, amendments and order cancellation.

The Trading At Last session (TAL) will run between 13:55:20 and 14:00:20 as brokers and investors will be able to place executable orders, whether new or previously placed orders, as per the closing price only and previous closing price to be applied if no closing price available during the same session.

Key benefits of the new TAL session:

- TAL session is one of the various initiatives taken by DFM in line with the MSCI upgrade

- TAL will reduce the possibility of order book imbalance with high spreads in bid/ask during the Pre-closing session

- TAL further facilitates institutions' pursuit to rebalance their trades and flow trades apart from the Pre-closing session, which otherwise has significant impact on Pre-closing matching price

- TAL offers enables investors to trade or reposition based on the closing price

The table below explains the details of DFM trading session:

Pre-Open: 09:30 to 09:55

Allow order entry/ amendment/ cancellation

Pre-Open: 09:55  to 10:00

Allow order entry but NO order cancellation

Trading (Open): 10:00 to 13:45

Continues trading

Pre-closing: 13:45 to 13:53

Allow order entry/ amendment/ cancellation

Pre- closing: 13:53 to 13:55

Allow order entry but NO order cancellation

Pre- closing: 13:55 to 13:55:20

Order matching

Trade-At-Last: 13:55:20  to 14:00:20

Allow order entry at last price

Post-Trading (closing): 14:00:20

Session closing

-Ends-

About Dubai Financial Market:
Dubai Financial Market (DFM) was established as a public institution with its own independent corporate body. DFM operates as a secondary market for the trading of securities issued by public shareholding companies, bonds issued by the Federal Government or any of the local Governments and public institutions in the country, units of investment funds and any other financial instruments, local or foreign, which are accepted by the market. The DFM commenced operations on March 26, 2000. Following its initial public offering in November 2006, when DFM offered 1.6 billion shares, representing 20 per cent of its paid-up capital of AED 8 billion, DFM became a public joint stock company. Following the IPO, the Government of Dubai retained the remaining 80 per cent of DFM Company through Borse Dubai Limited. www.dfm.ae

For further information, please contact:
Atef Fathy
Vice President- Head of Media & Public Relations
Dubai Financial Market
Tel: 04-3055334
Email: afathy@dfm.ae

© Press Release 2015