Arabtec recovery hopes spur DFM sell-off

22/02/2017 06:00 AST

The swift fall in Arabtec shares triggered a wider sell-off on Dubai bourse on Tuesday, as traders liquidated other positions which were in profit, on hopes to cut losses in the construction major.

Arabtec has fallen 36.36 per cent since February 12 after the results, and fell below Dh1 mark. On Tuesday Arabtec closed 7 per cent lower at Dh0.836. Traders liquidated positions in DFM, Damac Properties, Gulf Finance House, Union Properties among others on hopes of recovery in Arabtec.

“The losses that we’ve seen in Arabtec and Drake and Scull has encouraged people to become more active in terms of taking profit from stocks that they are concerned with in terms of fundamentals,” Sanyalaksna Manibhandu, director Research, National Bank of Abu Dhabi Securities said.

“If there are no new announcements from the management of Arabtec, we might go lower,” Manibhandu said. Arabtec had announced of a rights issue after publishing their fourth quarter results.

Gulf Finance House fell more than 2 per cent to end at Dh2.83. Dubai Financial Market shares fell more than 5 per cent to be at Dh1.42. Shuaa fell more than 2.5 per cent to end at Dh1.74. “Traders would be waiting to get back in the market. Profit taking is a good thing as they prevent you to be expecting too much,” Manibhandu said.

The Dubai Financial Market General Index closed 1.22 per cent lower at 3,560.04. The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange General Index closed 0.60 per cent higher at 4,607.69.

Etisalat closed 2.22 per cent higher at Dh18.40. First Gulf Bank closed 0.74 per cent higher at Dh13.65. Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank closed 1.21 per cent higher at Dh7.53. Dana Gas fell 8.51 per cent to end at Dh0.43 after the company re-stated their results.

In other Gulf markets, Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul index closed 0.20 per cent lower at 7,057.79. The Qatar exchange index closed 0.19 per cent higher at 10,933.69. The Kuwait Stock Exchange index closed 13 points lower at 6,766.36.

Gulfnews