Mixed bag for UAE indexes

29/12/2016 07:44 AST

Aggressive selling led to a drop in the Dubai Financial Market General Index on Wednesday. The DFM fell by 0.63 per cent to 3,519.71 points, led by Emaar Properties.

The property developer’s shares dropped 2.46 per cent to Dh7.14. Ahmed Waheed, the vice president of institutional trading at Menacorp, in Dubai, said that the market saw "happy sellers" which led to the push on Emaar.

Even with on Wednesday’s loss, Emaar shares are up by 25.4 per cent for the year to date. While trading volumes were average for DFM, trading in the small capital stock GFH surged with more than 108 million shares traded.

Shares for the Bahraini company specialising in Islamic finance instruments closed at Dh1.98, up 2.59 per cent.

The financier is looking to break Dh2 resistance, or when investors feel that the price is too high for the stock. "In the case of GFH, every time it has pushed Dh2 it has fallen," said Mr Waheed.

The Abu Dhabi index ended 0.06 per cent higher at 4,471.57 as traded value stood at Dh163.3 million. Eshraq Properties and Dana Gas led the way in terms of volumes traded. Eshraq shares closed up 2 per cent, while Sharjah-based Dana remained nearly flat despite the recent increase in oil prices.

"Although oil prices are going up, investors may be worried about the company’s performance," Mr Waheed said regarding Dana Gas.

The company is looking to restructure capital and is dealing with several arbitration cases that could affect fourth quarter results.

"And investors may be pessimistic about those results," he said.

The National