Tuesday, Nov 12, 2013
Dubai: UAE stock markets continued to witness sell-off on Tuesday after Monday’s sharp falls in Dubai, which analysts said was profit-booking ahead of the Expo 2020 announcement.
Both the indices — the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) General Index and ADX Securities Index — dropped the same, 0.78 per cent to close at 2800.69 and 3781.94 respectively.
“I think this is just normal profit-taking after a very strong run for the year, especially for the Dubai market,” Bruce Powers, a trader and an analyst, who also contributes a weekly column to Gulf News, said.
Powers said that the markets had been moving sideways the past couple of weeks with the bulls and bears slugging it out until one side became more aggressive. In this case, the sellers won out.
However, he is more concerned about Abu Dhabi as it has never got above the prior peak in the recent rally, while Dubai has and Dubai remains above its prior peak. The Abu Dhabi index is up 43.75 per cent up for the year, whereas Dubai’s index has surged 73 per cent, making the latter among the top five performing markets globally.
Downside risk
“The medium and long-term uptrends are still intact for both markets. Abu Dhabi looks to have greater downside risk at this point given that it did not recently exceed its prior peak,” Powers said.
Of the 33 stocks traded in Dubai, 23 declined, nine advanced and one remained flat. Emaar Properties and Drake & Scull, the most active stocks in terms of value and which had shed more than three per cent on Monday, recovered somewhat. Emaar gained 0.68 per cent to Dh5.93 and Drake & Scull 0.79 per cent to Dh1.28.
Arabtec, Dubai investments, Dubai Islamic Bank and Air Arabia fell 0.39 per cent, 1.42 per cent, 0.25 per cent and 5.44 per cent respectively. Both Dubai Islamic bank and Air Arabia reported third quarter earnings on Monday.
In the capital, Aldar Properties continued to decline, sliding down 0.79 per cent to Dh2.50. Among the other losers included Etisalat, which dropped 1.71 per cent to Dh11.50, First Gulf Bank which retreated 0.61 per cent to Dh16.20 and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, slipping 0.20 per cent to Dh5.09.
By Gaurav Ghose Financial Features Editor
Gulf News 2013. All rights reserved.
