Emaar and Aramex earnings lift DFM

Strong earnings by Emaar Malls and Aramex boosted Dubai’s stock market yesterday but most major Middle Eastern indexes were soft, with changes by MSCI to its equity indexes affecting the Egyptian market.

The Dubai index added 0.8 per cent as Emaar Malls , the emirate’s flagship mall operator, rose 3.6 per cent to Dh2.33, although it came off the day’s high after failing a test of technical resistance on the January peaks of Dh2.38.

It reported a 27 per cent gain in fourth-quarter net profit to Dh574 million.

Sico Bahrain had forecast Dh499m.

Courier Aramex, which has been trading near one- year lows, jumped 7.3 per cent after it reported a 25 per cent rise in fourth-quarter net profit to Dh165m, beating SICO Bah- rain’s estimate of Dh115m. For the full year, profit increased only 2 per cent.

The Saudi index fell 0.2 per cent although Riyad Bank gained 0.7 per cent after reporting a leap in quarterly profit to 974m Saudi riyals from 293m riyals a year ago.

It cited lower impairment charges for credit losses; analysts polled by Reuters had on average predicted a profit of 732m riyals.

Saudi Investment Bank fell 1.3 per cent after MSCI said it would remove the stock from the MSCI Saudi Arabia index at the end of this month.

In Egypt, the index dropped 1.1 per cent as the biggest bank, Commercial International Bank, fell 3.4 per cent to 73 pounds.

Egyptian interest rates look set to fall as inflation eases. In a report this week, AlphaMe- na kept an “add” rating on the stock with a six-month target of 88.8 pounds, but said the bank would suffer from an interest rate cut since the fixed interest nature of its deposits would hurt profit margins.

Egyptian tobacco company Eastern Company climbed 3.2 per cent while investment bank EFG Hermes dropped 5.5 per cent.

MSCI said it had decided to add Eastern to its MSCI Egypt global standard index, replacing EFG Hermes, which moves to its small cap index.

El Sewedy Electric fell 2 per cent; it will be deleted from the small cap index.

MSCI’s changes will take effect at the end of this month.

Qatar’s market was closed for a public holiday.