UAE bourses continue gains
dubai — The UAE markets recorded strong gains on Sunday, driven mainly by blue chips in the oil, property and banking sectors.
For the seventh straight session, the Dubai stock market maintained the upward momentum led by Emirates NBD bank and Union Properties.
The DFM General Index added 0.2 per cent at 2,780.95, while Abu Dhabi’s ADX General Index rose 0.4 per cent at 5,052.49 points, boosted by Adnoc Distribution. Emirates NBD Bank was up 1.3 per cent following its announcement last week that it will buy Turkey’s Denizbank.
Emaar Properties was down 0.4 per cent, while Shuaa Capital was up 4.3 per cent. The firm is set to merge with Abu Dhabi Financial Group soon in a reverse takeover.
Adnoc Distribution jumped eight per cent on Sunday to a oneyear high of Dh2.7 in the wake of an approval by the company’s shareholders for an increase in the firm’s dividend policy and a plan to buy back its shares while parent company Adnoc considered a secondary listing for Adnoc Distribution overseas.
Last week, the company also won shareholder approval to buy back up to 62.5 million shares, equivalent to five per cent of its free float during a 12-month period.
Dana Gas and Eshraq Properties were among the stocks registering the highest trading volumes in Abu Dhabi, and they went up 0.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent, respectively.
Saudi Arabia’s main equities index dropped 0.6 per cent on Sunday, snapping a nine-day advance that was the longest since December 2017.
The best performers of the session on the Tadawul All Share were AXA Cooperative Insurance Company, which rose 10 per cent or 2.40 points to trade at 26.40 at the close. Meanwhile, United Cooperative Assurance Co added 4.67 per cent or 0.50 points to end at 11.20 and Saudi RE Cooperative Reinsurance was up 3.27 per cent or 0.24 points to 7.58 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Saudi Research and Marketing Group, which fell 2.63 per cent or 2.00 points to trade at 74.00 at the close. Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Saudi Arabia Stock Exchange by 101 to 73 and 13 ended unchanged.
Tadawul, which earlier gained as much as 0.4 per cent, was weighed down by its biggest member Al Rajhi Bank. Last week, the index breached the 9,000 level for the first time since 2015 as it continues to benefit from inflows after its inclusion into major gauges tracked by MSCI and FTSE Russell this year.
Saudi Arabia, which recently joined the FTSE Emerging All Cap Index, will be the biggest new addition to the global indices, the largest of which is the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which it will join from May. MSCI will give the kingdom a weight of 2.7 per cent, between Russia and Mexico.
The kingdom is hoping the inclusions will kick-start its drive to become a major destination for foreign capital. The process should help bring in about $20 billion of combined passive inflows during 2019, analysts estimate. That would push up foreign ownership from around 2 per cent, one of the lowest in the region, to around six per cent, according to Al Mal Capital.